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The Christian's Heritage, 



AND 



0t\tx Sermons. 



BY THE LATH 



MELANCTHOX W. JACOBUS, D.D., LL.D, 



TOGETHER WITH 

AN UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



EDITED BY HIS SON-IN-LAW, 

Rev. Matthew Newkirk. 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

530 Broadway. 

1878. 







THE LIBRARY 
OF C ONG RESS 

WASHINGTON 



.traGs 



Copyright 
By Robert Carter and Brothers. 

1877. 



Cambridge: 

press of 

john wilson and son. 



ST. JOHNLAND 

STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 

SUFFOLK CO., N. Y. 



PREFACE. 



Many former parishioners and admiring 
hearers of Dr. Jacobus have requested for 
publication those sermons which they have 
heard with profit. And these have been 
gathered and are now presented, without 
alteration or revision, just as they were 
written and left. There has been no such 
selection as would display mere exegetical 
skill or literary power. Those who have 
demanded the volume have made the choice 
of the contents. And these favorite dis- 
courses are issued with the prayer that 
he, being dead, may yet speak to many 
hearts with words of comfort, joy, and 
conviction. 

Among his papers has been found an 



IV PREFACE. 

autobiography, commenced a few weeks be- 
fore his death, and embracing only the 
incidents of his earlier life. Although in- 
complete and unrevised, it is given with 
the sermons to show the deep religious 
experiences and complete theological prep- 
arations which so remarkably fitted him 
for his pastoral and professional work. A 
filial hand has imperfectly but briefly at- 
tempted to complete the life-sketch. 

M. N. 



CONTENTS. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

I. 

THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE 



" For all things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or 
Cephas, or the world, or Life, or Death, or things present, 
or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and 
Christ is God's." — I Cor. iii. 21-23. 

11. 

LOSING OR SAVING LIFE 18 

" For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but who- 
soever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel's, the 
same shall save it." — Mark viii. 35. 

III. 

LIMITATIONS OF THE DIVINE WORKING 38 

"And he could there do no mighty work, save that he 
laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them." — 
Mark vi. 5. 

IV. 
CHRIST THE IDEAL MISSIONARY 57 

"Who went about doing good." — Acts x. 38. 

V. 

THE LAW OF THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION 73 

"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord how Is it that 
thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? 
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he 
will keep my words : and my Father will love him, and we 
will come unto him, and make our abode with him."— John 
xiv. 22-23. 



vi CONTENTS. 

VI. 

THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 9° 

"But one thing is needful."— Luke x. 42 "One 

thing thou lackest." — Mark x. 21 "One thing I 

know."— John ix. 25 "One thing have I desired of 

the Lord."— Psalm xxvii. 4 "But this one thing I 

do." — Phil. iii. 13. 

VII. 
"TO THE UTTERMOST" no 

"Wherefore he is able also to save them to the utter- 
most that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to 
make intercession for them." — Heb. vii. 25. 

VIII. 

PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS 128 

" Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." 
— John xi. 5. 

IX. 

THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST AND SOUGHT 

BY HIM 143 

" And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to 
this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For 
the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was 
lost." — Luke xix. 9-10. 

x. 

TEARFUL SOWING AND JOYFUL REAPING....... 162 

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that 
goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubt- 
less come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with 
him." — Psalm exxvi. 5-6, 

XI. 
CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE 180 

" He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also 
in much : and he that Is unjust, in the least is unjust also in 
much." — Luke xvi. 10. 



CONTENTS. vii 



XII. 
UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS 197 

" In every thing give thanks ; for this is the will of God 
in Christ Jesus concerning you." — I Thess. v. 18. 



XIII. 
FEAR AND FAITH 215 

" What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." — Psalm 
lvi. 3. 

XIV. 

NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT BY PERSONAL 

SANCTIFICATION 235 

" Peter saith unto him : Thou shalt never wash my feet ! 
Jesus answered him : If I wash thee not thou hast no part 
with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet 
only, but also my hands and my head." — John xiii. 8-9. 



XV. 
MODERN INDIFFERENTISM 254 

"And Gallio cared for none of these things." — Acts 
xviii. 17. 

XVI. 
THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION 270 

" Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold 
me with thy free Spirit ; then will I teach transgressors thy 
ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." — Psalm 
li. 12-13. 

XVII. 
EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER 289 

" If any man's work abide which he hath built there- 
upon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall 
be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be 
saved ; yet so as by fire." — I Cor. iii. 14-15. 



viii CONTENTS. 



XVIII. 
THE EAGLE'S NEST 306 

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth 
them on her wings ; so the Lord alone did lead him, and 
there was no strange God with him." — Deut. xxxii. 11-12. 

XIX. 
OUR HEAVENLY HOME 327 

" In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were 
not so, I would have told you." — John xiv. 2. 



XX. 

THE DOUBLE CALL 



"And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him 
that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come, 
and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." 
— Rev. xxii. 17. 



349 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



I, Melancthon Williams Jacobus, was born in New- 
ark, New Jersey, September 19, 1816, nearly opposite 
the place where I was brought up, and about midway 
between the First Presbyterian Church edifice and 
Fair Street, in the house afterwards occupied by Mr. 
Elisha Whitaker. 

My parents, of blessed memory, were Peter Jacobus 
and Phebe Williams, of whom I was the first-born. 
My father was the youngest child of Cornelius Jacobus 
and Catherine Garrison, who lived at Pompton Plains, 
N. J. My grandfather died at eighty-two years of 
age, and my grandmother at ninety-eight. A young 
brother and sister died named " Peter Hamilton" and 
Elizabeth, the latter at five years of age giving mar- 
vellous evidence of the Christian life. My brother 
Theodore Dwight, after being twice married, died in 
Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1851. My sisters Hannah Cath- 
erine (now Mrs. Richard A. Donaldson — widow) and 
Frances Elizabeth yet survive. My father died Au- 
gust 28, 1866, and my mother November 20, 1872, the 
former aged seventy-five, and the latter eighty-one, 
both at 70 Park Place, the family residence in New- 
ark, N. J. ; and both are buried in Fairmount Ceme- 
tery, Newark, on the ridge overlooking the Passaic 
River. 

The house to which my father removed and where 
I was brought up was the house formerly owned by 
Samuel Pennington, and next (north) to the residence 



X AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

of Judge Smith Burnet, the garden running west 
along the line of the Old Burying Ground, My fa- 
ther's factory was adjoining the residence north, the 
front being about the same as the residence, making 
together about forty-eight feet on Broad St. Judge 
Burnet's residence was the place in which the first 
banking institution in Newark was opened. The prop- 
erty north of my father's abutted on the burying 
ground (as his factory also did), and was part of 
the First Presbyterian Church property. The origi- 
nal church stood on this ground opposite the present 
church (on Broad Street). The row of buildings on 
this leasehold front was known as the Brick Eow. A 
stream of water ran north and south through the 
grounds, and was allowed to run up to my father's 
line, while the grounds were used for burial. After 
that it was filled up between the slopes, and gradually 
has become improved, with sad havoc upon the place 
of the dead. (See Harper's Monthly Magazine for 
October, 1876.) 

My earliest recollection is of going to school to Mrs. 
Martha Hinsdale, in a frame annex to the house of Ja- 
bez Hayes, nearly opposite the present Third Church, 
Newark; and to Miss Elizabeth Woodruff in the Brick 
Bow nearly opposite the First Church, Broad Street. 
I remember Lewis M. Rutherford, now of New York 
City, as one of my school-fellows. Afterwards I began 
the study of Greek and Latin at eight years of age, 
and went to the Newark Academy to Abraham Van 
Doren, who with his sons J. Livingston and Luther 
Halsey and J. Howard were principal and teachers in 
that institution, corner of Academy and Broad streets, 
now occupied by the post-office building. After that 
I think it was under the charge of Silas Sesson, and 
again of Mr. Rood and of Rev. Richard Croose, to 
whom, in turn, I was sent for instruction. After that 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. XI 

to Nathan Hedges for a short term. His habit of 
punishing boys by "sending them to Java" was often 
witnessed by me, but never experienced. It was a 
forced passage between his legs as a Colossus — the 
poor fellows receiving blows as they passed through 
on hands and knees. At the Newark Academy I re- 
member William T. Mercer, Horace Baldwin, Matthias 
Ward, Charles Hornblower, Alex. C. M. Pennington, 
and others. 

When a boy of ten to twelve I was thrown into 
contact with the apprentices and journeymen of my 
father's employ, the former of whom were members 
of his family, fed at his table, and sleeping under his 
roof. My father had been apprenticed to Mr. William 
Rogers in the saddle and harness business, and set up 
for himself in a small way, his only capital being his 
capital credit. And he was one of the earliest to intro- 
duce the southern trade to Newark along with Luther 
Goble in the shoe business, Isaac Meeker in clothing, 
Wm. Rankin in hats, and Jas. Turnbull in carriages. 
I was forward and active, and fell readily into com- 
pany with the young men in my father's employ. And 
I was an amateur apprentice myself — "drawing on" 
trunks of horse-hide and seal-skin over wooden box- 
frames, stitching girths for saddles, stitching bridle- 
reins and making bridles. This my father encour- 
aged, as an industrial pursuit, cultivating enterprise 
and keeping me out of idleness and mischief. He al- 
lowed to me the pay received by other workmen. I 
kept my pass-book and was credited with substantial 
amounts for this kind of work. I have distinct recol- 
lection of these days, of times of sore temptation in 
which the loose habits of the apprentices were hurtful 
to me, notwithstanding all my father's caution. And 
though my father exercised a religious watch and con- 
trol over them, and provided for them a pew in the 



Xli AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

church gallery, handsomely lined and fitted up with 
cushion and books, they were far from safe companions 
for me. I can easily see how if I had been unchecked 
by divine grace, I should have become very wicked 
I remember skating on the small streams that ran 
through the parsonage property of the First Church, 
and having hot gin and whiskey with allspice served 
to the family on Christmas when a very small boy. 

Dr. Jas. Richards was the pastor of my father's fam- 
ily, as there was no Dutch church in Newark such as 
my father had been brought up in at Pompton. I have 
very indistinct recollections of Dr. R. — my earliest as- 
sociations being with Rev. Wm. T. Hamilton, who came 
to the First Church at the same time with Joshua T. 
Russell, both as candidates. They divided the church 
amidst high partisan excitement and angry controver- 
sy between the Hamiltonians and Russellites, as they 
were called; the adherents of the latter withdrawing 
and erecting the Third Church. Mr. Smith Burnet, 
living the next door to us, and related to my mother 
by marriage, was a leader in the secular undertaking, 
though not himself a church member. 

I remember my father taking me to the weekly 
prayer-meeting with him and to the nine o'clock Sab- 
bath morning prayer-meeting. I remember going to 
the Sabbath-school and Bible class in the gallery taught 
by Mr. Moses Lyon and by my father, when furnishing 
written proof-texts was the weekly exercise. My fa- 
ther also encouraged me to take down in the church 
the text and division of the sermon, and at noon-time 
and evening I was expected to transcribe these memo- 
randa, with as full additions as I could recall from 
memory. This was a very useful exercise, inducing 
attention, and concentration, and cultivating an inter- 
est in the sermon. Two or three books of sermon out- 
lines I have well filled as a result of such training. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. xiii 

This was suggested to my father by the example of 
Mr. Wm. Tuttle, Ruling Elder, who thus exercised his 
son Jos. N. Tuttle, now and for years a ruling elder, 
as our fathers were in the old First Presbyterian 
Church. 

I remember the Saturday afternoon catechising in 
the lecture room by Dr. Hamilton, and his pastoral 
visits at the houses notified from the pulpit on the 
previous Sabbath. 

I had the credit of being bright at study, and pro- 
ficient above my fellows, and when I was about four- 
teen years of age my father, chiefly as I believe on 
account of a revival of religion in the village of Bloom- 
field near Newark, determined to send me thither to 
boarding-school. Albert Pierson was principal and 
teacher of Latin; and there were several candidates 
for the ministry in preparatory studies there — Pe- 
ter Dougherty, John H. Morrison, Elias J. Richards, 
Aaron A. Kemble and others. Rev. Gideon A. Judd 
was pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Bloomfield. 
I requested my father to allow me to board with Dr. 
Mundy, a young physician near the Academy, which 
he granted. Dr. M. was not a Christian, though he 
had a charming Christian wife, and, what was to me 
most attractive, he had a fine bay horse, in which I 
became much interested. Alfred Allen and others of 
my town-fellows were at school there, and were great- 
ly exercised in religious things. After I had begun 
my studies, they urged me to attend the prayer-meet- 
ings, which I was reluctant to do. I strove against it 
for some days. Dr. Mundy countenanced me in my 
opposition to any part in the matter. Rev. Burtis C. 
Magie and his brother, candidates for the ministry, 
strove with me, and especially the good Spirit of God; 
for one day at noon as I mounted the fence on my 
way to my boarding-place, I halted and sat on the rail, 



XVI AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

from the beginning of my new life that this was my 
proper and appointed work. 

When I appeared for the first time before the ses- 
sion in Newark, for examination with a view to unit- 
ing with the First Presbyterian Church, my father was 
rather inclined to have me wait till another season. 
The elders, especially Mr. Obadiah "Woodruff, were 
close in their examinations. I remember that Mr. W. 
inquired particularly if I was not given to quickness 
of temper, which sometimes got the advantage. And 
upon frank confession of this (however ascertained), 
and in consideration of my youth (about fourteen), I 
was advised to wait, according to my father's hesitancy 
and desire that I should be well proved. At the next 
sitting for the following communion season, I was ad- 
mitted at the same time with Mr. Wm. Wallace, Jr., 
and others. 

When it became settled that I should make ready 
for the sophomore class in Princeton College, I sought 
and enjoyed the services of Wm. Dod, a recent gradu- 
ate and a superior mathematician, to prepare me in 
the study of algebra, and I pursued some other studies 
with Mr. Nathan Hedges. I well remember how, in 
September, 1831, my father conveyed me with my 
baggage, bed and bedding to Princeton. We rode 
into the town on the open wagon (one horse) which 
carried its load of goods, and as I caught the first 
sight of the Old North College, with its prison look, 
I felt a cold chill run over me, of shrinking from the 
ordeal I was to undergo. I had the advantage of 
having a friend, who was a candidate for the ministry 
and who entered college at the same time, Aaron A. 
Kemble, from Haddonfield, N. J., who had also been a 
fellow-student at the Bloomfield Academy. He took 
great interest in me and did much, by daily counsel 
and example, to stimulate me to exertion in study. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. xvil 

He became my room-mate. He was a smoker. But 
by my father's special caution and admonition I was 
mercifully kept from being led under bondage to such 
a habit, and I have never smoked tobacco. 

One of the tutors at college at this time was the Rev. 
Festus Hanks. His department was mathematics. In 
demonstrating propositions in Euclid I was summoned 
to the large slate blackboard, which was mounted on 
a huge frame in a corner of the recitation room. One 
day I remember when, a certain nervous timidity that 
afflicted me almost choked my uttterance from a fear 
I had of hearing my own voice, and a dread of break- 
ing down in the recitation of what I perfectly knew, 
Mr. Hanks spoke and said: "Don't be afraid, Mr. 
Jacobus. You have no need of fear." This made my 
agitation all the worse, and rather served to call atten- 
tion of the class to what I still hoped might escape 
their notice. This agitation at any reciting before the 
class clung to me throughout my college course, and 
greatly embarrassed me, requiring as it did a very 
special memorizing to put me in command of my les- 
sons, and inflicting on me a severe distress on every 
occasion of my public appearance. Though I was the 
youngest in my class, so far as I know, I stood at the 
head and took the first honors in each year. In the 
junior year, Prof. Albert B. Dod, being our mathe- 
matical professor, gave to three or four of us the 
mark "No. 1, Distinguished" — I remember Shipley, 
Ed. Pendleton and myself. 

In the junior year I was chosen by the Clio Hall as 
one of the junior orators, along with Parke Godwin 
and Elias J. Richards. And at the close of the senior 
year, I was assigned the first honor along with Edward 
Pendleton of the Whig Hall, my classmate from Mar- 
tinsburg, Va. He was, throughout the course, a very 
accurate and accomplished scholar, and well deserved 



xviil AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

a share in the honor. The Latin salutatory fell to me 
by lot, and the English salutatory fell to him. It was 
customary at that time to divide the honors, 1st, 2d, 
3d, and 4th, between several. The Clio Hall treated 
my honor as equivalent to "Solus" as it was Solus in 
the hall division, and they accorded to me the very 
special honor which they were wont to give to such. 
The testimonial remains in the hall to this day. 

After the honors were announced that same day, I 
met my professor, Jas. W. Alexander, on the steps of 
the hotel. He grasped my hand and said with hearti- 
ness: "I shall always be glad to hear of your pros- 
perity.''* I shall never forget the actions or the words. 
He never failed to make them good. 

After the commencement, though I was not yet 
eighteen years of age (until the nineteenth of the 
month), the president, Dr. Jas. Carnahan, informed 
me that the trustees had elected me tutor in the 
college, and he added his wish that I should serve. 
This was a surprise to me. I shrank from the tutor's 
exposure among rowdy college boys, as I had seen 
them suffer all manner of indignities, and, considering 
my youth, I doubted. I referred it to my father, and 
he referred for counsel to his former pastor, Dr. Jas. 
Richards. His counsel was that, as I was to be a 
preacher, he would advise me not to be a pedagogue. 
And this counsel was fully in accord with my feelings. 

As I had age on my side, and had no need to hasten 
to my profession, I determined to take a year's respite 
from study for reading and active employment in my 
father's office. This latter I was inclined to, as my 
father's business was expanding, and trade with the 
far south and south-west was existing at that time 
of spirited competition. This commercial experience 
was indeed a great gain to me. It gave me knowl- 
edge of business and an insight into that particular 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. xix 

branch which enabled me to give substantial aid to 
my father in time of need. I made out bills, con- 
ducted correspondence, kept books, waited on buyers, 
and often went after them and showed them atten- 
tions which secured then* orders. This was pleasant 
to me; yet it did not alienate me from my work. 
Though it seemed to my father and to some of our 
best friends that Providence opened the way to me to 
become partner with my father at that time when his 
business required extension and a joint headship, yet 
I was never for a moment moved even to a doubt 
about my great high calling to the ministry. 

Accordingly, in 1836, 1 entered the Theological Sem- 
inary at Princeton. 

[September 19th, 1876. This day, a brilliant sky and 
inviting air, I am sixty years old, writing these 
reminiscences of early life; thankful to a Covenant 
God for his great goodness wherewith he has dis- 
tinguished my lot, and hopeful for other years of 
usefulness.'] 

Drs. Alexander (Archibald) and Miller were pro- 
fessors, and Dr. Addison Alexander assistant, and Dr. 
John Breckinridge a portion of the time, the last as 
missionary professor for a very short period. Theo- 
logical discussions were rife in the church, and debat- 
ing clubs were formed among the students. Samuel 
"W. Fisher and Thos. Wickes took the side of the 
new theology, and John McAuley dealt much in Dr. 
Nath'n "W. Taylor's system, that "all sin consists in 
voluntary action." 

In 1837 occurred the great schism in the church, 
the trial of Albert Barnes and also the formation of 
a new assembly, accompanying the exscinding acts of 
the Old School body. The students were of course 



XX AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

much excited. Some of them attended the trial in 
Philadelphia, Samuel K. Wilson among them. When 
Judge Rogers' decision was announced, favoring the 
New School claims, the professors were alarmed and 
queried what course they should take. But soon 
Charles J. Gibson's decision reversed the Rogers' ver- 
dict, and there was peace in the Seminary. My friends 
at Newark, as might have been expected, were strong- 
ly in sympathy with the party which was led by Dr. 
Fisher and Dr. Richards. But my own mind was 
fixed on the side of the standards and the true suc- 
cession as I understood it. 

When my course of three years was finished, though 
I had invitations to one or two fields, Dr. Alexander 
(Archibald), one day at the close of my course, an- 
nounced to me that it had been determined to invite 
me to remain as tutor in Hebrew — assistant to Dr. 
Addison Alexander, at a salary of $200 provided by 
the Roswell Colt Fellowship (Paterson, N. J.). This 
suited my taste entirely, and I was glad to remain. 
It fell to me to conduct the study of the entering class 
in Hebrew grammar. At that time Dr. Isaac Nord- 
heimer was preparing and putting through the press 
his admirable grammar, and was doing much of the 
work at Princeton. Here I fell in with him intimately, 
and enjoyed walks and talks with this remarkable 
man. He presented to me a copy of his grammar, 
first published, with his autograph. I also copied 
his notes and lectures on Syriac and Arabic gram- 
mar, and became deeply interested in his plans foi 
pubhshing these and other, works, which plans were 
broken up by his untimely death. I was one of a 
class to whom he lectured, and one of a class of Addi- 
son Alexander's in special Hebrew studies during my 
seminary course. This elegant scholar (Dr. A.) took 
lively interest in me, and gave into my hands the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. XXI 

Book of Malachi, to prepare a commentary, which I 
did in my way. This exercise served to direct my 
studies in the department of exegesis, and thus a 
taste was developed for this line of investigation. 

During this year I was licensed to preach by the 
Presbytery of New Brunswick, sitting at Freehold, 
N. J., in the church of Rev. D. V. McLean. It was 
the period of great speculation in the morus multi- 
caulis tree, in which Mr. McLean was prominent as a 
cultivator and dealer in the article. The propagation 
of the tree by buds was very profitable, and the ex- 
citement ran high in the production of silk- worms and 
their food. 

During my course in the Seminary, I took active 
part with Robert Birch (afterwards settled as pastor 
of First Presbyterian Church, New Brunswick) in con- 
ducting a Sabbath-school at Blawenburgh near Prince- 
ton; the people coming for us alternately in a wagon 
on Saturday and bringing us back on Monday morn- 
ing. This was the only approach to pulpit exercise 
which the custom of the Seminary allowed prior to 
licensure, and the licensure was not given until gradu- 
ation. So I found myself set loose upon the churches 
with this permit to preach, before having any exercise 
in preaching, except the ten-minute exercise in the 
oratory of the Seminary two or three times in the 
course. It had happened with me that being in the 
village of Orange, N. J., I was pressed by the vener- 
able Dr. Hillyer, then pastor of the first church, to 
occupy his pulpit on a Sabbath evening. Rev. Dr. 
Fisher was also present, and another clergyman whom 
I do not remember. It was claimed that there were 
three present (enough to form a Presbytery), and Dr. 
H. said they would license me for the occasion. But, 
as he was to be present, it was considered orderly, and 
I preached. This, so far as I remember, besides once 



XXll AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

speaking of an evening in the Orange school-house, at 
the solicitation of Mr. Aaron Peck, was the whole of 
my public work in preaching prior to licensure, be- 
yond the Sabbath addresses as conductor of the Sab- 
bath-school already referred to. 

But now, as I came to my graduation in the Theo- 
logical Seminary, and had accepted the proposal an- 
nounced to me by the venerable Dr. A. Alexander, 
to continue a year as tutor (or fellow) in Hebrew, I 
was not a candidate for any pulpit. I preached occa- 
sionally, however, in Newark, and elsewhere near at 
hand. It occurred, towards the close of the year, 
that I received an urgent call from the First Pres- 
byterian Church of Brooklyn, New York. It was on 
this wise: 

During a vacation in the Seminary, I was asked to 
supply the pulpit of the church from which Dr. Cox's 
(Sam'l Hanson) church had separated by withdrawal 
from the General Assembly, in the schism of 1837. 
This remnant (among them, prominent as elders and 
trustees, Adrian Van Sinderin, Daniel Colt and oth- 
ers, elders — and John Laidlow, Judge Peter RadclifT 
and others, trustees, etc., and Rev. Jonathan Green- 
leaf, secretary of the Seaman's Friend Society in N. Y.) 
was worshipping in a hall, at the corner of Fulton and 
Cranberry streets, where I first preached to them, not 
at all as a candidate, but only as a temporary supply. 
They, however, were pleased, after advising with Dr. 
Benjamin H. Bice, pastor of the church at Princeton, 
and Drs. Alexander, Miller and others of the Semi- 
nary, to formally present and urge their call upon me 
to become their pastor. This was quite contrary to 
my thought, as I had been devoting myself to my 
work in the Seminary, and had made no further prep- 
aration of sermons for settlement, not expecting so 
soon to enter the field. But after full consideration 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. XX1U 

of the case, in such a crisis, with such urgency of the 
call, I was led to accept what seemed to be my duty 
before God and man. 



Here his own manuscript ends. — Though unfinished 
and never revised, it is offered as more particular and 
interesting than any history of those earlier and for- 
mative years which could be prepared. Five weeks 
after the last words were penned, Dr. Jacobus " was 
not — for God took him." And it remains our sad 
duty briefly to enumerate the events of that brilhant 
and busy life which closed on earth at threescore 
years. 

Having accepted an unanimous and urgent call from 
the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, he was in- 
stalled pastor in the fall of 1839, and entered upon his 
duties at the time when the church was involved in 
the controversies ensuing upon the rupture of 1838. 

In January, 1840, he was married to the eldest 
daughter of Samuel Hayes, M. D., of Newark, N. J. 
He labored successfully in Brooklyn during eleven 
years, in which time the church was well established 
as one of the most flourishing in the Presbytery. It 
was at this time he received the first warning of 
impaired health. Added to his pastoral and pulpit 
labors, he had undertaken the preparation of a Com- 
mentary upon the Gospels, the first volume of which 
was published in 1848. The confinement and exhaus- 
tion of this additional work led to a disease of the 
throat, which rendered it necessary for him to inter- 
mil; his labors, and seek refreshment and health in a 
foreign tour. In the fall of 1850, his congregation 
granted him a year's furlough for travel, and made 
liberal provision for supplying his pulpit. Accom- 
panied by his wife, he travelled over the continent 



XXIV AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

of Europe and then extended his tour into Egypt 
and the Holy Land, returning by Constantinople and 
Greece. He reached home in September, 1851, great- 
ly benefited in health, and more thoroughly furnished 
for his work by his journeyings among classic and 
Bible lands. 

It was during this absence that an event occurred 
which changed the course of his subsequent life. ~ The 
chair of Oriental and Biblical Literature in the "West- 
ern Theological Seminary at Allegheny City, Penna., 
was vacant; and the attention of the directors being 
attracted to his rising fame, both as a preacher and 
commentator, he was chosen to fill the position. The 
General Assembly in May, 1851, confirmed this nom- 
ination, and duly elected him to this professorship. 
This call met him in a foreign land, and he was not 
yet thirty-five years of age. Finding his health greatly 
improved by the season of rest and travel, and feeling 
that the comparative quiet of a professorship, in an 
interior climate, was more suitable to his habits as 
well as desirable for the preservation of his life, he 
resigned his pastorate in Brooklyn, amid the regrets 
of his admiring and united people, and, accepting the 
chair of Oriental and Biblical Literature, removed to 
Allegheny City, and entered upon his duties in the 
early part of 1852. 

This new position was favorable to the accomplish- 
ment of the ideal of his life — the completion of a 
commentary upon the sacred Scriptures. His volume 
upon "Matthew" had already been published; but 
now, fresh from the scenes of the Holy Land, he 
took up the interrupted work, and in 1853 issued his 
second volume on "Mark and Luke." This was fol- 
lowed in 1856 by his valuable work on "The Gospel 
of John," and in 1859 with a still more elaborate com- 
mentary on "The Acts of the Apostles." In 1862 these 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. XXV 

"Notes on the GosjDels" were republished in Edin- 
burgh, Scotland, and obtained an extensive circula- 
tion. In 1864-5 the two volumes on "Genesis" were 
issued. These books evince great labor and research, 
and in a brief space furnish a mass of material made 
ready for the use of Bible students. 

In February, 1858, he was called to the pastorate 
of the Central Presbyterian Church of Pittsburg, and 
for more than fourteen years ministered in addition to 
the duties of his professorship, with remarkable zeal, 
to the upbuilding of this church. 

In the church — its ecclesiastical courts, its benevo- 
lent enterprises and its great controversies — he has 
been an active participant. He attained the highest 
ecclesiastical honors that could be conferred upon 
him. The scholastic degrees of D.D. (Jefferson Col- 
lege, 1852) and LL.D. (CoUege of New Jersey, 1867) 
adorn his name. He is associated, historically, with 
the grandest event in the history of our church, — as 
Moderator of the Old School Assembly at the time of 
the Reunion in 1869-70. 

In 1870, the matter of Ministerial Sustentation en- 
gaged the attention of the first Assembly of the re- 
united church, and a committee, of which Dr. Jacobus 
was chairman, was appointed to consider and report 
upon the question of more adequate pastoral support. 
In 1871, the Assembly adopted the scheme which was 
proposed, appointed a committee to take it in charge, 
and elected Dr. Jacobus to be its secretary — a post 
which he accepted and held for three years on the 
condition that he should receive no salary for his ser- 
vices. The duties of this position were discharged, in 
addition to his full professorial work in the Theolog- 
ical Seminary and his pastorate in Pittsburg. In 1874 
he resigned his official connection with this scheme, 
and the General Assembly paid a handsome tribute to 



XXVI AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

the value and disinterestedness of his services by a 
resolution of unqualified commendation. 

In the spring of 1876, he was elected secretary of 
the Board of Education of the Presbyterian Church, 
and was urgently pressed to accept this position, for 
which he was remarkably qualified by his long associ- 
ation with students for the ministry. His reasons for 
declining that position will appear from a brief extraci 
of a letter written at the time : 

" You may be surprised to learn that, after weighing 
all my duty in regard to the secretaryship, I am not 
able to see my way clear to accept the invitation. 
The work would take me so entirely off my track of 
life-long occupation, — in the office and on the wing, 
vindicating the cause, and appealing for funds, and 
taking a sort of oversight of candidates — that I find 
myself shrinking from it, and fearing that my nervous 
system might not bear the strain. I therefore more 
readily fall in with the protests from Allegheny, and 
with the counsel of many Eastern friends, who say 
that, while I am the man for the post, it is doubtful 
whether it is the post for me. And, much as I should 
like the idea of rendering the church important ser- 
vice, I can not be sure that even at self-sacrifice I 
should be able to endure it. I wait, then, the will and 
providence of God. I would like to pursue my Bib- 
lical studies, and put my material of twenty-five years 
into shape. Perhaps I may have mistaken my duty; 
but I have every way sought light." 

At the opening of the new term of the Western The- 
ological Seminary, September, 1876, he delivered the 
address: his theme, "Bible" Study, Professional and 
Popular." 

In the following month he attended the Synod oi 
Pittsburg, of which he was a member, and took an ac- 
tive part in its proceedings. He addressed the Synod 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. xxvii 

upon various matters which were under discussion, and 
particularly made an earnest appeal on behalf of the 
cause of sustentation, in which he continued to take a 
lively interest. 

On the same week he spent a day (Thursday, Oct. 
26th), by special appointment in conference with Rev. 
Dr. C. C. Beatty about plans for the future welfare of 
the Seminary. His mind was full of valuable sugges- 
tions, and his enthusiastic nature looked forward with 
hopefulness to the future advancement of that institu- 
tion. Reference being had to the half -century cele- 
bration of the Seminary next spring, he remarked, "At 
the same time I shall celebrate my quarter century of 
connection with it, and we both shall enter upon a new 
course of usefulness." On Friday he attended to his 
usual Seminary duties, and on Saturday morning (Oct. 
28th) the community was startled with the intelligence 
that he was no more. He worked up to the very 
last, without the loss of an hour or a single lecture, 
and entered upon a higher service in heaven — dying 
in the harness — falling on the field — his busy, useful 
life ending suddenly and mysteriously, almost without 
seeing death or tasting its bitterness. 



I. 

THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

"For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, 
or the World, or Life, or Death, or things present, or things to come ; 
all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." — I Cor. 
iii. 21-23. 

The apostle here takes an inventory of the be- 
jiever's possessions, if so be he may tempt him to 
the enjoyment of the Christian's heritage. It is 
given in large figures. It is based on calculations 
which the world do not understand. It will seem 
to the uninitiated to be visionary; like those wild 
reckonings, which are only on paper, and are not 
sustained by the facts. But it is as if a man had 
been notified of immense estates, bequeathed to 
him beyond the seas, from a long-forgotten rela- 
tive. And the man himself is slow to believe it 
all — has not even faith enough in the good news 
to go and take possession, or even to enter his 
claim. And so the Christian, by the death of his 
Kinsman Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, has be- 
come heir to a patrimony in two worlds, which 
transcends all our arithmetic. 

How seldom do Ave think of the term Testament, 
as a legacy, and a legacy to you and me. It is 



2 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

not often noticed, how this Gospel announcement 
is made as a preface to the Decalogue, and must be 
read and received before any one of the command- 
ments can be understood or obeyed — "I am the 
Lord thy God,- — that have brought thee out of the 
land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage." 
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." 

The apostle reaches his point in the text by 
exhorting these Corinthians against their narrow 
jealousies, which divided their Christian interests. 
He advances the large idea, that instead of boast- 
ing ourselves against each other, as to our Chris- 
tian privileges, we ought rather to be sharers in 
each other's joy. For this Christian treasure that 
we have in the church and the ministry, is not 
such as is reduced by others sharing it. It is like 
the light, which is its scriptural emblem. It be- 
comes brighter all around, by others lighting their 
torches from it. Therefore all that we have from 
Christ is ours — and all that our brethren have from 
Christ may be enjoyed as ours also, if we will only 
enter into their joy. Just as, even in worldly prop- 
erty, where the mine and the thine are so distinctly 
pressed, I may enter into the joy of my neighbor, 
and may share his possessions, by looking out 
upon his gardens and groves, and getting the com- 
fort of them, without the care of their keeping. 
Just as I may even enjoy his happiness, as a 
sharer with him in all that blesses his lot, if I 
have only the large-heartedness to "rejoice with 
them that do rejoice." 

I remember just such a man on Brooklyn Heights, 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 3 

looking out daily from his window upon that beau- 
tiful bay, with its fairy scenes ; and he used often 
to say to me, " I would not take a thousand dollars 
for my interest in Governor's Island." He made it 
daily his own, by roaming over it with his eye, 
and feeling all the charm of it, as an appendage 
of his grounds, and it was quite as though he had 
the title deed for it, only without the taxes and 
the care. For no one could carry it away from its 
lovely seat in the bosom of that glorious water, 
and no one could shut it out from his view. And 
therefore, though the government owned it for an 
arsenal grounds, it was his for all his better pur- 
pose of enchanting scenery. 

There are three couplets here — under which the 
all things are grouped. 

The Church and the World; Life and Death; 
The Present and the Future. 

The first item in the Christians inventory is — 
that the Christian ministry is yours. Paul, Apollos, 
Cephas — they all belong to the believer. u For 
who is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers 
by whom ye believed ? " What is their function, 
but to instruct, guide, and comfort you — to pro- 
claim to you the Gospel message, and to help you 
on to glory ? Not alone your own pastor, nor 
alone the ministers of your own denomination 
even, whom you have cherished and boasted ; but 
others also, and the whole company of them, are 
yours for Christian service, and yours as bound 
up with you in the same great interest, which you 
and they together represent. They belong to you, 



4 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

as they do not to the outside world, who will have 
none of their care and guidance. They belong to 
you as the shepherd belongs to the flock — as the 
teacher belongs to the school. They are not yours 
to set up one against another — not to criticise, and 
to neglect, and to condemn. But they are all yours 
with their respective gifts and qualities, to profit 
by them all. The one may give more instruction, 
the other more admonition or consolation. And 
no one of the true ministers of Christ, is so weak 
or so humble, but he can dispense to you the truth 
from the skies — just as an infant can cast a seed 
into the furrow, as well as an archangel. 

And who can calculate what wealth of benefit 
and blessing is involved in this single item, to a 
believer! Strike out all that you get from the 
ministrations of the sanctuary, and from the pre- 
cept and example, or influence of the Christian 
ministry in any household or community, from 
childhood up, and what a blank is left. If you do 
not get good from the minister, it is most likely 
that you do not value the message. For what is 
the man to the message? A menial servant can 
bring me news from my home that shall gladden 
my heart forever. The meanest minister brings 
you the good news from heaven. 

But a second item in this inventory of the Chris- 
tian's estate, is the world. This is a large item. 
Is there no mistake? Or' is it on the list only by 
some theological fiction or exaggeration? Can it 
fairly be said of every Christian, that the tvorld is 
his — that be he prince or pauper — master or slave 



THE CHRISTIANS HERITAGE. 5 

— millionaire or beggar — he owns the world? That 
what the wordling is striving to gain at the peril 
of his own soul, even the whole world, he has 
gained along with the saving of his soul, and even 
by means of his soul's salvation? But, is it not 
rather said in the Scripture, that the world is his 
enemy, and that the world's friendship is enmity 
with God? 

Let us see. I undertake to emphasize it. The 
world is the Christians, first of all, because his Father 
made it and owns it. u If children then heirs, heirs 
of God, and joint heirs with Christ/' And the 
Christian is the man who is rightful owner and 
heir of the world. It was made for him, and not 
for the worldling — not for the man who is debased 
and debauched by it, and who abuses its enjoy- 
ments, to shame and sin. All nature is meant to 
minister to the child of God. These laws of the 
physical world are bidden to subserve his highest 
interest. The stars hold on their courses, and the 
seasons run their round for him, and the whole 
cosmos is a wondrous mechanism, in which all 
things are so constructed as to co-work for him — 
all the forces and appliances working together for 
his good. The man who claims the world as his 
own, and is bent on enjoying it in defiance of God, 
lives only by sufferance, and as a child of pleasure, 
he is dead while he liveth. 

And then again, the world is the Christian's, in 
its highest idea; to get all the benefit of it, without 
the mischief and the curse. He is master of it and 
not slave to it. Have you thought that the world 



6 THE CHRISTIANS HERITAGE 

is just that which the Christian gives up, relin- 
quishes, foregoes, by his Christian vocation? that 
this whole domain of earthly pleasure is that which 
he forswears and denies himself? And that here 
is the weight that is to be cast into the scale, 
when you weigh over against all this, his treasures 
in the shies? This is the view of some. And. so, 
many an uninitiated one, regrets, sometimes, that 
he must forfeit so much to be a Christian — and 
wishes he could consistently carry into the Chris- 
tian life certain worldly pleasures that he is expect- 
ed to resign. Is this the true idea? Nay. The 
Christian has discovered what is the higher domain 
of pleasure to be enjoyed in the world where its 
poisons are not tasted, but only its true delights — 
where its temptations are mastered, and only its 
pure, solid and lasting benefits are enjoyed — where 
the higher taste excludes the low, debasing grat- 
ifications, and finds a sphere for the purer appe- 
tites, and a range for the nobler desires. These 
use the world as not abusing it. 

Blessed are the meek (says Jesus), for they shall 
inherit the earth. The Christian grace of meekness 
that is moderate in its desire and that enters into 
the joy of others as if it were its own, making it 
its own — this is a beatitude. Blessed such are and 
must be. Happiness must have its sources within 
the soul. And anywhere outside the stream can 
rise only to this level of the fountain within. So 
says the Psalmist, u The meek shall inherit the earth, 
and shall delight themselves in the abundance of 
peace." And that is a kind and quality of abun- 



THE CHRISTIANS HERITAGE. 7 

dance, which is more than abundance of treasure 
or of worldly estates — the abundance of peace. It 
is not what a man can show his legal claims and 
titles for. It is rather what he really possesses and 
enjoys as part of himself, which makes him an 
owner. And what he has locked up securely in 
his breast, he possesses and ovens in the highest 
possible sense, as the key to all true enjoyment. 

I ask you what a man is worth. And you say 
so many dollars, as if gold were the standard of 
worth. When you speak of a man, you know, if 
you think a moment, that his real worth consists 
of principle — not money principle, but moral prin- 
ciple. Gold is worth only what it will purchase 
for you. You can't eat it. You can't make a bed 
or pillow of it. You get the good of it only when 
you part with it for something else. And gold will 
not buy happiness. For happiness is not a mer- 
cantile commodity. The noble vessel that ploughs 
through the ocean, and rides upon the wave, and 
makes even its currents a propelling power for the 
passage across, that is the vessel to which the ocean 
belongs, and not that other vessel that has the sea 
come up over its bulwarks, and rush in at the 
cabin doors, and fill it, and drown it to the depths. 

But the third item in this inventory of the Chris- 
tian's estate, is, Life. Understand it. Life is the 
heritage of the Christian. There is a mere physi- 
cal life which we have in common with the brows- 
ing herd. And life, to the multitude, is the mere 
brute being. And the highest idea of life, with 
such, is to enjoy all the physical functions, and 



8 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

to gratify all the appetites, and to regale all the 
senses to the full. But this is not life, as a man is 
made to enjoy it, in its higher qualities, and for its 
nobler ends. This is life every way narrowed and 
hampered in its sphere of pleasure by the poisons 
of sin, and it is life, sadly, awfully bounded and 
cut short by death. But the Christian, by his very 
principle of living, has life as a noble heritage. 
And it is life in all the most exalted and harmoni- 
ous play of the mental and moral powers. 

This is not arbitrary. Could you even say that 
a wild Indian, ranging over the fields for his game 
and living as a happy child of nature, could have 
life in any such high sense as the man of culti- 
vated intellect, and of refined taste, and of spir- 
itual perceptions ? No ! Here is the secret. The 
Christian life, that is "hid with Christ in God" — 
that enters into the very enjoyment of God, that 
lives in sympathy with God's Avork, that spans 
the gulf between the eternities, and already en- 
ters into God's rest, and partakes of the divine 
nature — already lives beyond the grave, already 
sets the affections upon the things where Christ 
sitteth on the right hand of God ; this Christian 
life is the highest style of life, has all the elements 
and conditions of pure, happy, useful, blessed liv- 
ing. Only such a man knows what it is to live — 
to live close beside the fountain of life — where new 
draughts of life can be partaken in ever fresh sup- 
plies — and where the life itself is life and light also 
— the life, the light of men — not ignorant grovel- 
ling life, that merely vegetates, but life elevated, 



THE CHRISTIANS HERITAGE. 9 

illuminated, and in affinity with God. Do they 
own life, who claim the passing enjoyment as life's 
great end ? They whose life is a life of fashion, a 
life of sport, a life of gaiety and indulgence — a life 
of worldliness and vanity, and sin and shame ? Is 
that life? And are they lifes owners? If it were 
even a life as sinless as that of the butterfly, would 
it be Life, as that of the saint, who lives to God, 
and goes to live like a seraph, in the presence and 
blessedness of God forever ? 

And seeing that the Christian possesses life in 
its highest quality, has he not also the clue to 
life's secrets, and the key to life's richest stores? 

Take the multitude, and so many have high 
physical life, and have ample means to make life 
happy, but mistake the idea of happiness; are try- 
ing to get life's full benefit by wealth hoarded, 
w T hen the true happiness is in active charities, and 
in wealth liberally dispensed. Some will be lib- 
eral only when they die, so they deny themselves 
the happiness of living as God has planned it for 
them, and proposed it to them, in vain. 

But take the man whose life daily duplicates 
itself by sharing what he has with others — who 
enters into sympathy with Christ's work on earth, 
and so becomes a Saviour also in his humble 
sphere ; that man has discovered the true life, 
that is "hid with Christ in God"; that man has 
found the true luxury of living ; there is somewhat 
in that life, that is divine-human, and godly, and 
Christ-like ; and such a life is angelic in its affinity 
with the better world. It is the life of God in the 



10 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

soul of man ! And to live such a noble, unselfish, 
happy life, belongs to the Christian, as it does not 
to "any other. " He most lives, who thinks most, 
feels the noblest, acts the best." And life to the 
Christian, is just a scene of divine and angelic 
ministries on his behalf. Tis just his daily train- 
ing for glory. It is not an end, but a means to-an 
end. It takes hold already upon heaven, which is 
only the life beyond. 

I said to an aged Christian lady, as she came 
out from the bedside of a dying friend, " My dear 
madam, you too have come near the end, and must 
soon die also." u Ah!" said she, with beaming 
face, "ah, I shall then only just begin to live!" 
All providential dealings are the believer's for 
eternal blessedness, and life is his in the highest 
sense, because interpreted and used aright. It is 
the unfolding of the divine counsels of grace and 
love towards him, in his pupilage for the skies. 
And all that life can yield of experience in divine 
things, of rich discovery of God's truth and cove- 
nant, and of preparedness for the life beyond, is 
his. And this is the highest glory of the present 
life, which only the Christian man can possess. 

But the Christian's estate stretches even farther 
than this. It is not more true that the world and 
life are his, than that death is his also. This is 
an item that lies beyond our common sphere of 
knowledge. We see the outward phenomena of 
death, in which it is common to all. And the 
Christian is not, in any such sense, the owner of 
death, as to control his movements, or to escape 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 11 

his summons. And yet, though he must bow his 
head as low as any in the grave, death belongs to 
him, as it does not to any other. Other men indeed 
belong to death They are death's victims, death's 
prey. Death has all his terrific power over them, 
holding them in bondage here, by the fear of his 
blow, and holding them in eternal bondage here- 
after, under the second death. Sometimes it is a 
living death they live, and then death gets so 
much the mastery, that they fall prematurely un- 
der his power. 

But death is yours, my Christian brother, in the 
sense that all its circumstances are arranged for 
your best interest. It will come only as it is sent 
to bless you — only as it comes to consummate God's 
covenant blessing in your case. Just at what mo- 
ment, in what manner, on what spot, by what dis- 
ease or so-called casualty — -just with what processes 
of wasting or not, all as particularly adjusted to 
your case, as light is adjusted to the eye, or sound 
to the ear, to produce the most vivid impression, 
or the most exquisite harmony, so death shall come 
ministering to you. And so it shall be to you, the 
Son of Maris coming to fold you in his arms, while 
death only wraps his dark mantle over you for the 
passage. 

God makes no mistakes. There is no such thing 
as accident, or casualty, or fatality with him. None 
whatever ! Just when your seat is ready at the 
table the bell will ring, and the messenger will 
come to conduct you in. Just when your partic- 
ular mansion in the Father's house is entirely pre- 



12 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

pared — when the last picture is hung on the wall, 
and the last item of furniture is in its place — then 
you shall be bidden to enter in, and take posses- 
sion. Some of the pictures are painting now, from 
these life scenes, not yet finished. The map of the 
way in which God has led you is not yet com- 
pleted. Some of the furniture must be transferred 
from these earthly mansions, and some of the arti- 
cles are carving now, with your own fingers. 

Look at that Lazarus at the gate of Dives. Men 
see the gasping beggar. And they see the dogs. 
But they do not see the angels, who are there to 
escort him to Abraham's bosom. Men call it death. 
The angels call it life. Death is his; the property 
of that beggar, — belongs to him — does him dis- 
tinguished service. The cfea£/i-angel holds out the 
signal to the angels of light, and they come with 
torches for the dark valley, and bear away the 
heavenly guest to glory. 

But look at Dives. He belongs to death. What 
are all the purple, and fine linen, and sumptuous 
fare? What a record! "The rich man also died 
and was buried. " No escort of angels, no Abra- 
ham's bosom. Carry out the corpse. Bury him in 
his splendid tomb. His riches should have made 
a friend of that Lazarus to welcome him to the 
everlasting habitations. But no ! He left Laza- 
rus to the dogs. And he goes now to his own 
place, where not even the dogs can minister to 
him. All the pomp of a princely funeral is his — 
to cover death's doings— to divert men's attention 
from the dark under-ivorld, where he is lifting up 



THE CHRISTIANS HERITAGE. 13 

his eyes in torment. He could have no control of 
death's terror — could get no single service from the 
monster — could not buy any alleviation of death's 
bitterness and sting, with all his wealth. He must 
go down to the grave, unguarded and unhelped, 
and down to the abyss of despair, unsaved! He 
is death's victim — death's prey. He has no friend 
and helper, to go down with him to the dark val- 
ley, and across the deep river. None. No Jesus 
u who hath abolished death " for him. None ! 

But you, my Christian brother, as surely as you 
are a Christian, are not a subject of death's dark 
empire. You can plead your heavenly citizenship. 
You can say to the death-angel, " I am a Christian 
citizen and free born by virtue of relationship to 
Christ." You can claim exemption from the bond- 
age of death. He can not impress you into his 
ranks. You are a free man of Christ Jesus. You 
can not be holden of death, for you belong to one 
who has met death, and vanquished death, and has 
the keys of death's dark palaces, and can open his 
dungeons, and break his sceptre, at His will. 

"One moment here, so low, so agonized, 
And then — beyond the stars." 

Need I say more! Is not this enough for any 
man's heritage? Does it not cover all possible 
interests? If other words were needful, or could 
add any thing to these large items — if you could 
ever be in circumstances to despond, or distrust, 
after all these large assurances — then hear the 
apostle: " Things present, and things to come," are 



14 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

yours! Ah! I know. It is these surroundings of 
the hour. It is this present struggle and conflict. 
Or this passing cloud of affliction — or this thun- 
der clap which has just burst over our heads. It 
is this particular strait of to-day — it is this burden 
— it is these tears — it is this heart-ache — which sets 
aside all large generalities, and makes us beg for 
some assurance, that will reach down to our pres- 
ent case. 

My Christian brother ! Things present are yours ! 
No matter what they are. Not merely the past, 
which has been conquered — with all its strong 
temptations and gloomy fears, and fiery trials; 
but this present — these very things that concern 
you so much to-day — these vexations — these dis- 
appointments — these bereavements — these contin- 
gencies — these mysteries of Providence, which you 
would so like to have interpreted — they are all 
yours! You are master of the situation, if you 
knew the facts. They are working together, and 
co-working, with all other things, for your good. 

And, what is yet more amazing, " Tilings to 
come " are yours ! All that undiscovered, unre- 
vealed future, with all its events — its hopes and 
fears — its smiles and tears — all its tidings of joy 
and sorrow — all its new friendships and its broken 
ties — all its dreams, and its realities, as they open 
upon you, like an Apocalypse, day by day. They 
are all yours. And nothing can eventuate, that is 
not in your interest. The future is yours. The 
unfoldings of to-morrow will be sure to pour into 
your bosom the materials for Christian joy, if you 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 15 

rightly read and receive them. Be the day dark 
or bright — come sunshine or come storm; just 
where you are so fearful — -just where you are en- 
tering with a shudder into the cloud — there the 
voice out of the cloud tells you it is Jesus ! And 
it is like the cloud of the Visible Presence, that 
hung over the Mercy-seat, in the holiest of all — 
it is the cloud of the divine glory. 

Yes! you may look down the vista of futurity, 
where men's hearts fail them for fear of all that is 
coming on. You may even see the storm-cloud 
gathering thick and heavy in your horizon. You 
may have dreary presage of troubles, losses, sick- 
nesses. You may shudder to have the veil lifted, 
that hides the things to come. And yet, you may 
look into the face all the reverse and distress and 
death agony, that you know must sometime hap- 
pen, and here is the assurance. Things to come are 
all yours ! All your future is compassed by God's 
covenant of love. Every cloud is bright to you 
from your upper side position. No good thing 
shall he withhold from you. No one shall harm 
you. No one shall pluck you out of his hands. 
Angels shall camp around your dwelling, and shall 
bear you up in their arms, lest you dash your foot 
against a stone! Your track is already laid, to 
where it opens into the heavenly paradise. The 
ladder from your stony pillow has its top in glory, 
and has the angels traversing it meanwhile, in 
ministries of love to you. 

And all things are yours! There is nothing which 
is not yours. 



16 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 

"If thou hast wherewithal to spice a draught when griefs pre- 
vail, 
And for the future time art heir to the Isle of Spices, 
Is it not fair?" 

Your afflictions are burdens, just as the bird's 
wings are burdens on his back by which he may 
soar to the skies, — -just as buoys are burdens to the 
wreck to float it to the surface — just as the life- 
preserver is a burden bound fast to a man to keep 
him from sinking in the sea. This darkness is but 
the shadow of His wing. Beyond all peradventure 
— far beyond all possible contingency — by His 
word of power and grace, who rules the universe — 
by his covenant and oath, who can never fail, 
the universe is yours! Poor sinner that you are, 
— deserving only of perdition, — once under the 
awful doom of everlasting death, having nothing 
to-day in your own right, but sin and shame — even 
you, without reserve or qualification, may look out 
upon the vast domain of creation, providence and 
redemption, and there is nothing in it all, but you 
can claim as your own, in Christ Jesus. You are 
infinitely richer than you had thought. Up! out 
of your tears, and darkness, and ashes— thou child 
of poverty — child of sorrow. All things are yours. 
You are a king and a prince unto God. These 
doubts, this darkness, ill become one of such 
princely birth and of such vast possessions. Live 
in some manner becoming your high rank, and 
splendid heritage. Paul — Apollos — Cephas — all 
God's ministers in all the church. The world, 
with all its interests. Life, with ail its truest joys 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 17 

Death, with all its sternest realities. Things "pres- 
ent, as you feel them pressing with all their Aveight 
upon you, and tilings to come, as you dread to con- 
front them. All are yours. Perfumes of paradise 
around the broken vases of earthly delights — and 
death itself only the bursting of the shell for the 
springing forth of the soul, to the new and higher 
life in glory! 

And now, all that is asked of you, is that you 
enter fully upon your estate and enjoy its splen- 
did benefits. Walk worthily of this high voca- 
tion wherewith you are called. u For all things 
arc yours! Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, 
death, things present — things to come 1 All are 
yours" Is there any thing higher, and more assur- 
ing? "And ye are Christ's." Can there be any 
thing higher, that shall link you fast to the very 
throne, and the very Person of the Almighty? 
"And Christ is God's" 



II. 

LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever 
shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save 
it." — Mark viii. 35. 

To find ones life, so as to discover the secret of 
happy and successful living — this is the great, high 
problem among men. Many a man spends his life- 
time in vain queries about life, — how he shall best 
enjoy it, — or best employ it to earthly gains, — or 
best accomplish the true end of living. Many a 
man is all his life long finding out where to live 
and how to live, so as to have the best climate, or 
the most comforts, or the choicest friends, or the 
greenest old age. If one could only know life's 
secret at the outstart, and act accordingly, then, 
indeed, such an one would seize upon the very 
ideal living, and would exhibit a life beautiful and 
blessed, with all the symmetry of a well-fashioned 
character and experience. 

To understand this momentous sentence, you 
must read the text in its connection. The same 
Jesus had just said, "Whosoever will save his life 
shall lose it." And the plain meaning is, that who- 
ever is set upon getting out of his life the most of 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 19 

selfish ease and indulgence, and mere self-grati- 
fication, shall be woefully disappointed, and shall 
come to utter loss of all life's proper good. 

A young man says, "I will live for myself. I 
will lose no opportunity to make money. I will 
rise early and sit up late. I will toil on, day and 
night, for wealth. I will have my large posses- 
sions — adding house to house, and field to field. 
I will get gain from the rich and gain from the 
poor, — by honest industry; and if need be, by 
dishonest exaction. I will subsidize the labor of 
the workman, and the skill of the mechanic, and 
nothing shall escape my eye that can add a far- 
thing to my increase. I will hold my gains with 
a rigid grasp. Others may give to the needy, and 
help forward the great schemes of beneficence, but 
not I. I will have my splendid mansion and my 
costly equipage, servants and dependents at every 
turn. I will be master and owner of whatever can 
add to human pleasure or ambition." How often 
such a greed overdoes itself! The man fails in 
getting what he so passionately craves. Or he 
fails as likely in getting this, and losing all beside, 
— in getting wealth and losing health, — getting 
goods and losing God. Nay he fails by getting a 
surfeit and losing the appetite. " For the world 
passe th away and the lust thereof." He shall lose 
his life by the very eagerness of the grasp with 
which he seeks to gain it, to mere selfish ends. 
Just as you sometimes see the drowning man, in 
the very convulsive struggle for life, seize his res- 
cuer by the throat, and disable him and himself 



20 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

also, so that they sink together. Mere selfishness, 
as we daily see it, defeats itself. Overreaching in 
business oftenest overreaches itself. Greed of gain 
will sometimes perish by satiety, — will stuff its 
morbid maw, so as to destroy itself by the over- 
load. Just as any physical self-indulgence con- 
stantly works disgust with the indulgence itself, 
and, by its more repeated gratification, breaks the 
appetite, and so loses the power to enjoy itself. 

Such paradoxes are deeply rooted in the con- 
stitution and course of nature. This is nothing 
arbitrary with God. True religion has its divine 
sources deeply welling up within the soul. And 
it is no vain promise. It is even, in part, the 
working of a natural principle, that is announced 
by Jesus in the text. " Whosoever shall lose his 
life, for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall 
save it." 

We are then to save life by losing it ? Yes ! This 
is the divine problem. And this is not so paradox- 
ical as might seem. We know how one may often 
save time by losing it, — save a day by losing an 
hour. We know how we often gain by giving, — 
even gain money by giving it away, — gain friend- 
ships by giving out our friendships to others. And 
how, as it is with the farmer, that by throwing 
away some of his last year's crop into the furrow, 
he gains a harvest of an hundred fold. So it is 
everywhere, that we must lose somewhat in order 
to gain more. Somewhat of time, — of energy, — of 
capital must be sacrificed in order to reap a return 
of kindred benefits. 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 21 

So it is with even the Gospel benefits, that 
though they are free and can not be bought in 
the sense of being bargained for, they must never- 
theless be bought, in the sense of parting with 
something for their possession. "Buy wine and 
milk, without money and without price." And so 
indeed, we solve that profound mystery of Christ's 
teaching, — that it is more blessed to give than it 
is to receive, — not as if it were all giving, and no 
receiving. But because the blessedness is in kind, 
— in actual receiving a return of the giving — good 
measure, pressed down, shaken together, and run- 
ning over, of gifts into the lap and bosom. 

And herein, too, lies the philosophy of this con- 
structive suicide, — this losing one's life by saving 
it, — that when one narrows his aims and enjoy- 
ments within the sphere of his own mere self, — 
excluding all other aims, and all share in others' 
well-being — that is just such a stagnation of soul 
as inevitably dries up the better nature and de- 
stroys the better self. The fountain that overflows 
and brims over with its fulness is the fountain 
that keeps fresh with its living waters. And this 
is the place where we choose to drink rather than 
from any stagnant pool. The announcement of 
the text is this — that living for Christ and the Gos- 
pel, so as to forget self, — so as to subordinate sel- 
fish aims and pursuits, — so as to lose one's self in 
this higher living, is the true secret of life, — of liv- 
ing to purpose — and of that higher style of life, 
which realizes life's greatest and best end. It is a 
first principle in this whole matter, that happiness 



22 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

is not found by seeking it as an end. Nothing 
is truer, in all experience, than that the pleasure- 
seeker is the pleasure-loser — eaten up with greed 
of pleasure — devoured by the appetite of indul- 
gence. "She that liveth in pleasure, is dead while 
she liveth." And a true happiness comes from 
having true objects of pursuit and true tastes- for 
gratification. 

It is in view of this fundamental constitutional 
fact, that Jesus Christ, the Prince of Life, proposes 
himself as the personal object of life, and his Gos- 
pel as the proper interest to be cherished in all our 
living ; and that he who will most lose his life in 
this direction shall most truly and effectually save 
it unto life eternal. 

Considering that it is hard to persuade men of 
this seeming contradiction, — we must clearly un- 
derstand what this losing one's life for Christ and 
his Gospel means. We know something of what it 
means when one loses his life for a friend, by ac- 
tually dying to save another — as when one plunges 
into the wave, and drowns in the effort to rescue 
a sinking fellow, — or as when one rushes into the 
burning chamber and is consumed in the attempt 
to save another, — or as when one steps in and takes 
the deadly blow that is levelled against a bosom 
friend. We know how love sometimes flames into 
such an all-absorbing passion, as actually revels 
in such self-sacrifice — and cheerfully yields up life 
itself, even in the fruitless endeavor to save one 
best beloved — wife, mother, sister, child. 

But the losing of life contemplated in the text 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 23 

is not necessarily this, though this may also be 
included in it. It is rather the spirit which may 
sometimes so express itself, and which stands ready 
for this actual yielding up of life at the instant, 
if need be. It is no falling under the wheels of any 
Juggernaut. But as it lies within reach of all, it 
is rather the daily cross-bearing and self-denial, 
the self-abnegation and self-sacrifice, that willingly 
loses sight of self in the Master, and in the absorb- 
ing aim to serve his Gospel cause. 

Take it, as it appears in the burning zeal of 
a true missionary who says, I will live for Christ. 
I will quit my home, my friends, my comforts, and 
go out far away amongst strangers, amongst sav- 
ages. I will give up the joy of these refinements 
and indulgences that belong to civilized society, 
and I will spend my days in telling of Christ to 
the pagan, and in lighting up his darkened soul 
with this religion of Christ, and in cheering the 
home of the barbarian with this Gospel of Jesus. 
I will forget my country — forget my church priv- 
ileges—forget my own home pleasures. I will for- 
get the joy of greeting beloved friends of my child- 
hood and youth, and I will be an exile from all 
these things for Jesus, and for the joy of giving 
this religion to the destitute. Say, then, is such 
a life lost, or found ? 

Lost lives are everywhere around us. Faculties 
prostituted, energies misdirected, souls wrecked. 
But not here. Jesus Christ himself was a man 
of joys, as well as of sorrows; nay of joys springing 
out of his sorrows ; finding his earthly life in losing 



24 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

it, never disappointed, never foiled in his purpose, 
never daunted nor overcome, even in Gethsemane 
or on the cross, always rising up from under every 
crushing weight, and singing at the last, not in 
despair, but in triumph, "It is finished." 

And there are men of such a stamp and style, 
whose record is in history, as the Christian men of 
the race — missionaries like Mills and Brainard and 
Williams of Erromanga, the American martyrs of 
India, and men at home who delight to give to 
Christ and his Gospel all their means, and poor 
widows who give him all their living. And there 
are yet tender spirits like Harriet Newell, who 
sanctified womanhood in the service of Christ and 
his Gospel for a perishing race. 

Can we not plainly see how the missionary in 
Christ's footsteps may abound in joys that spring 
out of his privations, — how such an one may find 
his life, in finding a vocation so noble, and an aim 
so genial and spiritual ; how it may even be a daily 
charm and rapture to be so set on the highest ends 
of living — and so absorbed in what is true and lov- 
ing and good? Can we not see how such an one 
enters upon a daily culture of the best tastes, and 
throws off a thousand cramping, crippling con- 
straints of a mere conventional and false living, 
for the honest, pure, and peaceful cultivation of 
things pertaining to the soul ? Men may not un- 
derstand it. But such a finding of missionary life 
is often a finding of life as a discovery; as where 
one has found lost health, or a lost home, or a lost 
friend, or a lost treasure. And take any man of 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 25 

a true Gospelizing spirit, at home or abroad, who 
says, "I will live for Christ and not for self — for 
Christ even more than for parents, or wife, or 
children." We know what it is to forget self for 
the darlings of the household. And this is a joy ! 
This is a pure pleasure ! The very aim to gladden 
the home circle with gifts or with new additions 
to their comfort, — this becomes an element of real 
happiness, in the cup of daily toil and privation, 
and makes even the most exhausting, wasting 
work minister to the soul's refreshment. 

But this person of Jesus, and this cause of his 
Gospel, is an object of living still higher, purer, 
better. It does not exclude the home objects. It 
only sanctifies all that sweet, domestic affection, 
and absorbs it in the nobler zeal of doing all 
things at home or abroad, for Christ and his cause. 
The man says, " I will aim to serve Christ in every 
thing — in business, working for Christ, — in society, 
speaking and acting for Christ, — in the home circle, 
living for Christ — keeping eye upon his example — 
studying his pleasure — aiming to promote his cause 
in doors, and out of doors — and subordinating self, 
selfish ease, and selfish emolument to the pro- 
moting of his Gospel. To this end, in the thou- 
sand channels of active work and influence, I will 
seek to be sanctified wholly — to have my business 
calling sanctified, and my plans, and aims, and 
calculations sanctified. I will deny myself. I will 
forego a personal gratification, if so be, I may ad- 
vance his cause. I will spare from my personal 
expenses to give to his treasury, and that not 



26 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

merely on a rare occasion, but as I have oppor- 
tunity, — and not merely so far as is convenient, 
but where it is inconvenient, and even damaging 
to my ease, and to my estate. I will take up my 
cross daily and follow Christ, — as a cross-bearing 
disciple, — not found without my cross — subordi- 
nating self to the Master — having a will subdued 
to his will, and the whole man subjugated to his 
service." Then it is the reign of peace, and love, 
and pleasure in the soul. 

There are living examples of this. Men who 
have left houses and lands in this sense, who have 
willingly submitted to privations — have yielded up 
themselves a living sacrifice — subsidizing all for 
Christ — not in any spirit of fanaticism, nor in any 
heartless routine of monastic living, but in a calm, 
earnest, well-advised, sober-minded devotement of 
themselves to Christ, manifestly making this their 
all in all for life ! In the world's eye, such " lose 
their life." But in God's eye such find their life 
and save it in the very worldly loss of it. 

Can such a life of loss be attractive? Is there 
any thing in it that looks like the discovery of a 
great secret — like opening a mine of gold — like 
unburying hidden treasure? Let us see. First of 
all. As regards lifes great ends. Life is found or 
lost, and saved or lost, according as it realizes or 
not its true idea. This involves a high constitu- 
tional question of what Life is, in its noblest and 
best realization, and how far any life is a true life, 
founded on true principle, seeking true ends; or 
how far it is false, in all its ideas and tendencies. 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 27 

Biologists who are speculating about the origin of 
life, and do not study its ends, find themselves 
absorbed in questions of life-cells, and tissues, and 
protoplasms, and never discover the life eternal. 
If the soul is made for God, then it can have its 
nature satisfied only in God. It can not be a true 
and noble soul — it can not even enjoy true happi- 
ness out of its proper sphere. All that may seem 
to be joy is but the animal gratification of the 
hour, or the low, grovelling indulgence of a false 
taste, that brings its swift-dealing penalty. 

Now take a soul absorbed in the service of Christ 
and his Gospel — not the monkish religionist,, deal- 
ing in the mere form and ritual of service, but the 
hearty, earnest Christian worker, alive to the cause 
of Christ and his Gospel. There is a harmony of 
the mental and moral powers, — there is a proper sat- 
isfaction in the things of God, such as the worldling 
never finds in the things of Mammon. The soul and 
body are so far answering their true ends. And 
there is a fulfilment of life's great purpose, which 
is a conscious blessedness. 

Men need to be convinced of what life is in 
this highest sense. They need to have the para- 
ble of the rich fool constantly spoken, to teach 
them that "a man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things which he possesseth" — 
that the most opulent and pampered lord is often 
the most menial slave, — that under the purple and 
fine linen, and sumptuous board, there is the soul 
at war with the high ends of its being, and so, 
necessarily ill at ease — disconcerted, and discon- 



28 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

tented, — never truly at peace — having never any 
Sabbath within. Such a life is a splendid failure. 

Now, the pleasure of a soul answering its high 
end — the pleasure of all the intellectual, moral 
and spiritual functions having their proper play, 
— working with all the charm of fulfilling their 
constitutional design — no jar — no contradiction — 
this is blessedness akin to the blessedness of God. 
This is the peace of God which passeth all under- 
standing. Truth, principle, conscience, faith are 
the highest prizes of life — the choicest treasures of 
the soul. Bunyan's Pilgrim lodged in the Palace 
Beautiful, and slept in the chamber called Peace, 
and in the morning looked out upon the Delect- 
able Mountains, and saw Immanuel's land from the 
house-top. 

And then, further, the self-renouncement which 
subjects one's reason and opinion and option to 
the word and will of Christ— this is the key to all 
true and happy and successful living. It is a di- 
vine revelation which comes with power to a man 
who is truly taught of God, that he who trusteth 
in his own heart is a, fool. And this is sound doc- 
trine, elicited often by the deepest experience of 
life. Some other one to trust in — some other one 
to follow — higher and better than self — this is the 
grand discovery of life which realizes life's great 
end. This is no sinking of one's manhood. It is 
only stripping off the tinsel and gewgaw of child- 
ish folly, to put on the proper garb and style of 
manliness — where one becomes the most of a man 
by communion with the God-man — deriving of his 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 29 

fulness — copying his example — relying upon his 
grace, and following his counsel and guidance to 
glory. 

And this is just the condition in which even 
disappointment brings no pain, because it comes 
as the kind and covenant ordering of Jesus. It is 
taken as belonging to the divine programme of 
our personal salvation. This losing one's life for 
Christ's sake and the Gospel's — subjecting all pride 
of opinion, and all high ambitions of the reason to 
the mind and will of God in the Scripture, count- 
ing it the highest reason to believe and trust in 
what God has revealed — counting all rationalistic 
self-assertion as most unreasonable against God's 
written word — and carrying this into the whole 
walk and work of life, — going just when and just 
whither he commands, — not stopping to make re- 
ply, nor to ask the reason why, — this is the su- 
preme blessedness of life. The uninitiated revolt 
at it, as a humiliating self-abnegation, unworthy 
of a man. But Jesus will have us thus lose self 
to find salvation, — where it is only losing self in 
him, to have the life hid with him in God, as jew- 
els are hid in a casket — or as a babe is hid in the 
folded arms of its mother. All the sweet counsels 
of bosom friends, on whom we are wont to lean in 
our perplexities, are summed up and sanctified in 
this gracious counselling and care of Jesus. This 
makes the world's awful desolations impossible to 
such, and the covenant promise is every day ful- 
filled, "None of them that trust in him shall be 
desolate." 



30 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

Jesus preaches rest, and he provides rest to the 
soul. And rest itself is life itself. You shall save 
your life by trusting it to his keeping — -by losing 
it in him. Here indeed occurs that blessed expe- 
rience, that in this emptying of one's self for Christ 
■ — this losing of one's self in Christ — there is a 
blessed losing of what is evil — a losing of one's 
cares by casting them upon Christ — a losing of 
one's sins by laying them upon Christ — a losing 
of one's burdens of every kind, both temporal and 
spiritual, by rolling them upon Christ — so that it 
is a happy loss for a mighty gain. And as the 
worm loses its crawling nature, to take on itself 
the wings of 9 the butterfly, — so in such self-losing, 
we are only pluming ourselves for the skies. To 
lose one's life for the Gospel is the true secret of 
saving it. 

The divine signature of the work of Christ, more 
than his miracles even, was his preaching the Gos- 
pel to the poor — to the laborer — to the outcast— 
to the distressed. This was his answer to inquir- 
ers and doubters — wrought out and demonstrated 
in their presence. And this is the glory of the 
Gospel, that it is a good word to the poor — the poor 
in purse, as well as the poor in spirit. And this is 
the reflective glory of the Christian work every- 
where, that it stretches out the hand of benefi- 
cence to the needy, on the great, high principle, 
that it is a blessing bestowed upon Jesus him- 
self, in blessing his own poor. Heathen religions 
and philosophies had nothing for this class. The 
Jews also derided them. " This people " — this rab- 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 31 

ble (they said), "that know not the law are accursed." 
But to feed the hungry^— to clothe the naked — to 
enlighten the ignorant — to aid the struggling and 
weak; this is the mission of the Gospel. This is 
where the good news and glad tidings come in. 

It was the glory of Athens, that she alone had 
reared a solitary altar to pity. But Jesus rears 
an altar to pity in every Christian breast. And 
then instead of the coliseum and the amphitheatre, 
where the slave was cast into the arena to fight 
with the beasts, there rose the hospital, the orphan- 
age, and the sanctuary of Christian worship. And 
to bless the poor with Christian charities, and espe- 
cially to sustain the ordinances for poor churches, 
even at personal sacrifice; this is in so far losing 
one's life for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, and 
this is finding one's life — finding the grand, high 
object of living — man's chief end — finding the true 
luxury of living — to win souls to Christ. 

" Sure they of many blessings 

Should scatter blessings round, 
As laden boughs in autumn fling 
Their ripe fruit to the ground. 

" And the best love man can offer 
To the God of love, be sure, 
Is kindness to his little ones 
And bounty to his poor." 

And then, further, as regards the meed of human 
praise, which men so relish, and for which they 
labor, as an object of life. It is the difference be- 
tween being esteemed for one's person and dress — 



32 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

for one's estate and equipage — or for one's noble 
qualities of soul, — esteemed for the ability to com- 
mand indulgences, or esteemed for the generosity 
and charity of a large beneficence, that carries in- 
dulgences to others. What public honor is there 
among men, like that which brings the poor, crowd- 
ing with tears around one's coffin— and the Sab- 
bath-school children, strewing flowers upon one's 
grave? Nay, what is it even to be laid in the 
poet's corner in Westminster Abbey, as having 
wondrously portrayed human character in the com- 
mon walks of life, — as having made one's pen speak 
in sympathy with the neglected masses? How in- 
finitely is all this beneath the actual Christ-like 
work of lifting up the masses by Christian char- 
ities, and by self-denying services, such as thrill 
through the very body of Christ in his feeling for 
the poorest members. 

A Christian may easily be defined. There needs 
no controversy on so plain a point. He is not 
a Christian who merely paints Christianity on a 
canvas, in her figure of relieving the distressed, 
and ministering to the downtrodden and abused. 
No! that is the artist's work, who may paint with 
magic colors an ideal most unlike himself. The 
Christian is he who sits for that original, who is 
himself the model of that form — the prototype of 
that image. And he finds his life, where such a 
mere artistic limner of it would put the shadow for 
the substance, and would say he lost his life in 
seeking to devote it to Christ and his Gospel. 

But this is the charmed word — losing one's life 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 33 

for Christ. Yet this is just where men shrink back, 
and will not readily venture on any such experi- 
ment, — can not understand how loss can ever be 
gain, — how self-denial can ever be satisfaction and 
success. A man says, "I will do what I can for 
the cause." He means — "What I can," without 
inconvenience. He says, I am not able to give to 
this or that object. He means, not able without 
some privation or self-sacrifice — without the denial 
of some indulgence — either promised or enjoyed — 
without in so far losing his life — losing some of 
his life's common pleasures — forgetting how the 
uncommon and superior pleasures of a higher life 
may come by this very means — may come in at 
this very opening — forgetting how the vessel must 
be emptied of rubbish in order to be filled with 
treasure — emptied of self in order to be filled with 
all the fulness of God. Nay, it is not to be con- 
cealed nor evaded, that the highest aim of human 
life is, in this sense, to lose one's life — to set one's 
self deliberately and earnestly to a life of self- 
emptying — self-denial — self-sacrifice for Christ and 
the Gospel, abjuring all that pampers pride, and 
panders to mere worldly indulgence, when by the 
true self-renouncement, Christ's cause may be best 
subserved ! It is just the ever present question — 
the constant, persistent application in all the char- 
ities of the church — in all the offices of beneficence 
— in the thousand appliances of Christian work — 
this is it — a distinct, undisguised proposition to a 
man to lose his life, in order to find it. 

Some fruit-trees must be lopped off at the top in 



34 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

order to a better bearing — the vine must be pruned 
so as to produce much fruit. Nay, even some 
clusters must be stripped off, for the better ma- 
turing of the rest. A ship's cargo, even her treas- 
ure, must sometimes be cast overboard to get to 
land. Conquest is by conflict Eeigning is by suf- 
fering, as its necessary and fixed condition. Even 
in Christ's kingdom, this is the proposition: u If 
we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him." 
It is the cross in order to the crown. 

But further than all this, the text is not merely 
a statement. It is also, and mainly, a covenant. 
It is not merely the working of a natural law, by 
which we must first lose a thing, before we find it. 
It is the working of a higher law, by which Christ 
covenants to more than compensate every loss in- 
curred in his service. "Even the cup of cold wa- 
ter, given to a disciple in his name, shall not lose its 
reward." It is a definite and fixed promise. "And 
he said unto them, verily I say unto you, There is 
no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, 
or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, 
for my sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive 
an hundred-fold, now in this time, houses, and breth- 
ren, and sisters, and children, and lands with per- 
secution, and in the world to come, eternal life." 
This is God's grand guarantee. Prove ye, whether 
it be not true — true in every item of it. I beseech 
you, my brethren, make proof of this contract. It 
is a plain, business transaction. It is a fair calcu- 
lation of outlay and return. Let no man dare to 
qualify the language, or to spirit it away by mere 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 35 

spiritualities. The phrase is, "an hundred-fold, now 
in this time, houses and lands." 

Do you believe it — that the investment is com- 
mercially good — that whatever is given to God in 
good faith comes back with large interest in this 
life? God is able to pay. He has all resources at 
his disposal. He controls your daily trade — your 
daily table. He can surely make his service re- 
munerative. And he has given his obligations in 
writing, sealed with royal, double seals. And why 
should he not make them good? As Luther said 
in an hour of anxiety, pointing to a bird on a 
bending branch, where he had perched, singing, 
" Happy fellow — he leaves God to think for him." 

I have known men of the world, who had made 
trial of giving to the cause of Christ, for return in 
kind, and who believed that they never gave a 
dollar but it came back to them, with a large 
increase, better than the banks. And is the Chris- 
tian to hold back and doubt the master's ability, 
or his fidelity? An hundred-fold, now in this life. 
What? Not any one hundred per cent — two dol- 
lars for one ! No ! But one hundred-fold. One 
hundred dollars for one. Do you believe it? It is 
by a higher and truer calculation than your best 
experts or actuaries can make. 

And then under God's covenant, you must take 
account of exemption from losses ivhich might other- 
wise have come, as well as of actual accumulation ; 
and who knows, how in God's reckoning, the large 
total is thus made up, without abatement, accord- 
ing to the largest terms of the promise. 



36 LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 

And there is a positive increase of values, where 
there is an increase of ability, to enjoy one's goods. 
The gift of an appetite is more than the gift of a 
sumptuous meal without it. 

Count the interest, then, along with the princi- 
pal. The disheartened prophet under the juniper- 
tree said, "Let me die. It is enough. Now," 
Lord take away my life ! " What are palaces, 
and banquets, and jewels, and equipage to a sick 
soul — to one whose spirits are dried up ? But God 
lifts the veil — takes away the pall from the pros- 
pect — gives to life a new relish and zest. And 
this is houses, and lands, and brothers, aiid sisters, 
all in one ! And all this is now in this life. If 
you know nothing of this, it is because you have 
not tried it. And what then of the hereafter? 
" In the world to come eternal life ! " Here all 
human calculation is baffled. Take the life of an 
angel — of a seraph flaming with the love of God. 
But more than this is the bliss of a redeemed soul. 

I see men everywhere around me, losing their 
lives — yet not for Christ's sake, and the Gospel's 
— but for passing indulgences and for vain ambi- 
tions. I see them losing life in a mistaken effort 
to find it, but finding nothing but drudgery, and 
disappointment, and grief, and loss, — finding death 
instead of life, and finding out the miserable, mock- 
ing delusion, when it is too late — when they have 
lost their higher life to gain the lower one — lost 
the future life to gain the present one — lost the 
eternal life to gain the temporal one — and have 
lost both lives — lost the soul and lost the body. 



LOSING OR SAVING LIFE. 37 

I set before you, as the surest calculation in all 
the universe this proposition of Jesus Christ him- 
self — Author of Life— source of life's blessedness — • 
of him who is the way, and the truth, and the life 
— that you shall find out life's highest uses, life's 
purest pleasures — life's most lasting riches and re- 
wards, if only you will lose yourselves in him — as 
a wife loses herself in her husband — as a friend 
loses himself in a bosom friend. If only you will 
lose sight of self in his sweet service — if only you 
will let go the lower, lesser life for the higher, 
greater life — you shall ever find all life's common 
joys sweetened to you — all life's common natural 
ties strengthened and endeared to you. You shall 
find out the secret of happy living, which you were 
seeking for, in other and false pursuits. And you 
shall find that the life of a man, when it is elevated 
by such divine aims as Jesus Christ proposes, be- 
comes a life hid with Christ in God, — becomes the 
life of God himself in the soul of man. 



III. 

LIMITATIONS OF THE DIVINE WORKING. 

"And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his 
hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them." — Mark vi. 5. 

God himself is law itself. And he can not work 
except in deference to law, as embodying the most 
solid and fixed principles of action. Law is not 
God — but only the proof of a lawgiver, who is 
God. As we understand it, law is only the uni- 
form working of force and power, whether in nat- 
ural or in spiritual things, as that law is deduced 
from our observation and experience in manifold 
instances. And when we speak of miracles, men 
commonly regard them as either violations of law, 
or suspensions of law, while in truth they are only 
exceptional workings, which are equally within the 
sphere of law, only of higher law, transcending all 
ordinary phenomena. In a most important sense, 
the grace of God is omnipotent Yet not so, be 
sure, as to be irrespective of all fixed principles of 
working. "He is able to save unto the uttermost." 
But observe, it is "all that come unto God by 
him." He is not willing that any should perish. 
No! But that all should come unto repentance. 



LIMITATIONS OF DIVINE WORKING. 39 

For the man that cometh not to repentance, must 
go on to condemnation and perdition. 

Look out in nature. The sun and rain are not 
able, even in their timeliest and most genial opera- 
tion, to bring any verdure out of the rock. And 
yet this is no defect in the quality of the sun, or 
the rain. It is only a necessary result, in such con- 
dition of things, according to constitutional law. 

So also in the domain of grace, as set forth in 
the text. There is a certain necessary limitation 
of the divine working. God bows to the eternal 
fitness of things. He is himself controlled by the 
law of his supreme love and faithfulness. The 
divine omnipotence, in gracious operation, is con- 
ditioned by the advertised plan, as regards the 
subject, or the sphere, or the circumstances, in any 
particular case. And yet, this is no essential qual- 
ification of the fact that God is omnipotent, or that, 
in the theological sense, the divine grace is irre- 
sistible. God's plan of grace can not be thwarted 
by the creature. u He will have mercy on whom 
he will have mercy." But there is a plan. He 
will have mercy on whosoever will. And accord- 
ing to this plan, God is pleased to work, and so to 
limit his operations. "God so loved the world." 
How much and how? That he gave his only be- 
gotten Son. But only with a plan, and for a defi- 
nite end — that whosoever believeth on him (and 
none other), might not perish (as otherwise he 
must) but have eternal life. 

Plainly, there are certain things in morals, which 
it is impossible for God to do. It is impossible for 



40 LIMITATIONS OF 

God to lie. And why is it impossible? Simply 
because he can not be false to himself, or false 
to any creature or interest in the universe. And 
hence, it is essentially inconsistent with the very 
nature of things, and contradictory to the very 
idea of God. 

In the passage before us it is written, that in 
a certain place, and in certain circumstances re- 
corded, Jesus Christ could do no mighty work — 
with the very partial exception that is named. 
It is an actual inability that is spoken of. It is 
recorded here as impossible in the circumstances. 
Is his grace then limited by creature conditions? 
Let us see. The limiting cause in the case before 
us was the unbelief of the people. Nothing else. 
This was his own people. It was his own coun- 
try and city of Nazareth. It was amongst his own 
neighbors, and kinsfolk, and acquaintance. And 
you have it written here precisely how the matter 
worked. He had been known by his townsmen 
in his boyhood. His family was well known. His 
trade, his brothers and sisters and mother — all — 
they knew them all. And they reasoned about 
him thus: "Is not this the carpenter — the son of 
Mary, the brother of James — a man of our commu- 
nity. We know all about him — his antecedents, 
origin, training, occupation, family, condition in 
life and daily business. Whence then hath this 
man this wisdom and these mighty works reported 
of him?" These were the workings of their minds. 
It was from the natural view of the case. And 
this was the bar to their faith. Looking upon him 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 41 

thus, in the mere human aspect — they could not be- 
lieve. And not believing in him, they could not be 
saved. 

But you say, it is the divine prerogative to give 
faith. So it is. But faith is not a substance, which 
God could give a man, as you could give a man 
bread or water. No! It is a mental condition and 
quality of thought and of heart, which can be 
given only in consonance with the laws of mind, 
and in keeping with the constitution of the soul. 
Faith was never given, as a solitary and independ- 
ent gift, apart from its necessary conditions and 
concomitants. There must be mental states, fore- 
going convictions and affections accompanying. 
And though faith is the gift of God, it is such a 
gift as is effectually barred by all the conditions 
of persistent and cherished unbelief. Therefore, 
faith, as a grace, does not spring up alone, as if 
it could be communicated by itself, and independ- 
ently of other graces. It is simply a quality of the 
divine life in the soul. It can not co-exist with 
such prejudices against Christ's person and work 
as belonged to those Nazarenes. It is founded 
on truth, and it must have its corresponding con- 
victions. It relates to a person, and it must have 
its corresponding affections. 

The blessed Spirit of God, the sole agent in re- 
generation, however supernatural, works naturally, 
not unnaturally. He goes so far towards giving 
you faith, every one of you, that he has given 
you the wonderful record, abundantly attested, 
to be implicitly believed. And the wonderful 



42 LIMITATIONS OF 

person and life to be fully trusted. And all that 
is lacking, is just the sincere disposition to ac- 
cept the truth, thus amply set before you. And 
God can not make you believe against your con- 
victions, nor against your will. So Jesus says to 
some of his hearers, "Hoiv can ye believe, who re- 
ceive honor one of another, and seek not the honor 
that cometh from God only?" How can ye pos- 
sibly do it? There are necessary conditions of be- 
lieving. And a man, in the rush of pride, ambi- 
tion, and self-seeking, can not be a believer. "The 
natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit 
of God, neither can he know them, because they are 
spiritually discerned." Therefore, while it belongs 
to God to give faith, he can not give it arbitra- 
rily, and abstractly, and apart from all consti- 
tutional law. No man can expect it, much less 
insist on it as the gift of God, when he is mov- 
ing habitually, in another and contrary sphere of 
thought, and feeling, and action, using no means, 
cherishing no kindred influences. For God can 
not contravene all the laws of mind. This would 
be to deny himself. He works within the sphere 
of mental and moral law. And though his grace 
has no conditions — as if it were to be bargained 
for — yet there are the necessary conditions for the 
operation of the grace — the conditions of things in 
which the grace operates, and which is essential to 
its operation. So it is said, "He came unto his 
own, and his own received him not." And so, 
using a natural illustration, it is said, "The light 
shineth in darkness, and the darkness compre- 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 43 

hended it not" — did not take it in. Just as when 
a dark cloud is so thick, as to be impenetrable by 
the rays of the sun. We understand that. It is 
no sudden defect of the sun's power. Only that 
is not the condition of things in which the sun's 
pow r er can be felt. 

Let us apply these principles to the operations 
of divine grace, and inquire what are the necessary 
limitations of the gracious working in any case 
or community. There was the large majority of 
instances at Nazareth, in which Jesus Christ could 
not, was not able, it is said, to do any mighty work 
of healing and salvation, with only a few rare ex- 
ceptions. Our inquiry relates, first, to the case of 
the man himself, and second, to the case of thos£ 
who are seeking the man's salvation. As to the 
individual case, unbelief is the effective bar and lim- 
itation of the divine working. Take it as regards 
the work of healing, when Christ was upon earth, 
This illustrates the great salvation in all time. 
The principles are the same for the soul as for 
the body. 

First, we are to understand that Christ's chosen 
work is to cure and to save — and that this is the 
uniform operation and result of the means of grace, 
unless toe interpose the unbelieving hindrances. 
Commonly we think of the grace as sitting in 
state, arbitrarily waiting to be pleaded with and 
persuaded — like imperial power, that is indifferent 
to its subjects, and only, peradventure, attentive to 
their petitions. But not so. On the contrary, Je- 
sus Christ is out upon his work of healing, travers- 



44 LIMITATIONS OF 

ing the world, seeking and saving the lost. Cures 
are his element — his proper motions. They flow 
from him as his living breath — as water from a 
fountain — as light from the sun — as life from the 
Godhead. They are the natural radiations of his 
love, save where we interpose the unbelieving ob- 
structions. For a fountain can be wilfully choked, 
in this or that passage, and the sun's rays can be 
shut out from one's eyes or from his windows. The 
sun shines for all, but not so as to reach the man 
who hides away in a garret or in a cellar, and will 
not be beholden to its beams. 

See how that woman that came away from all 
the world's physicians, in sheer despair, to Jesus, 
got somehow this living thought into her soul. It 
flashed down into her dark, desponding bosom, and 
therewith all her energies were roused to action. 
She thought within herself — ah, this is the turning 
point in her life — -she thought within herself, "If 
I may but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be 
made whole." She came to think of him, as of a 
galvanic jar, surcharged with all the electricity 
of love and healing — so that even the touch of 
even the hem of his garment would give her the 
cure. If we could so estimate it, that in him all 
fulness dwells — all the fulness of the Godhead bod- 
ily and all for us — then we should see the truth 
in something of its proper light, as reflecting on 
ourselves the fearful responsibility we incur of our 
own perdition. 

So the prodigal one day came to himself! "These 
rags — these husks — these swine." Let no man say, 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 45 

that his own case is too bad or too far gone now 
for a cure. Such limitation of Christ's power as 
we find in the text is not a weakness. It is only 
an indication of strength. God is restricted, not 
by any stint or failure of his resources. No. But 
only by the lack of the proper sphere for his oper- 
ations in any case. 

If you go with a broken limb to an oculist, you 
are not in the way of healing. His power does 
not operate in this direction. All he wants is to 
have the proper applicants for the cure he has to 
give. God's self-limitation therefore is all in per- 
fect consistency with his omnipotence, which only 
conditions itself in wisdom and righteousness and 
faithfulness and love. God will be true — true to' 
himself — true to the sinner— true to the Gospel 
scheme as revealed to men — true to the universe. 
The sun must have an atmosphere to work in, or 
he can not shine. The most powerful light will 
go out amidst the mephitic damps of a well or a 
mine. The prophet says to Israel, "Behold, the 
Lord's hand is not shortened that it can not save ; 
neither his ear heavy, that it can not hear; but 
your iniquities have separated between you and 
your God, and your sins have hid his face from 
you, that he will not hear." The hindrance does 
not lie in God's sovereignty. No! Nor in God's 
absolute decree. No! Nor in any unwillingness 
of God to save. No ! Nor in any lack of provision 
in any possible case. No. No. It lies simply and 
only in your unbelief. 

Of what avail would it be to you, if a draft for 



46 LIMITATIONS OF 

a thousand pounds were put into your hand, to 
your order, if you thought it a fraud, or a mistake, 
for some other man, or for yourself only upon 
some impossible condition; and for this, or any 
reason, you would not endorse your name upon 
it, or draw the money at the bank? You can not 
give a man the most precious gift, if he will not 
take it. 

And, second, This unbelief is the sole and certain 
barrier to the divine grace, because the faith required 
is only the necessary instrument by which we re- 
ceive the blessing. Nothing more is required of 
us than heartily to accept the gift. Nothing less 
is compatible with our receiving and enjoying the 
blessing. You think of the faith being requisite, 
as a positive, pre-eminent grace, and the grace, 
you say, you can not furnish. And the grace of 
faith in possession and exercise supposes the sal- 
vation to be already achieved. This is the confu- 
sion of ideas. Just here, the problem is tangled 
to the common view. But the faith is requisite, 
only by a necessary law of the mental and moral 
constitution. Faith in a father's promise is neces- 
sary to any enjoyment of the promises. But you 
do not go into a diagnosis of your mental or moral 
state, and ask yourself if you have the grace of 
faith in your father. No. You do not puzzle 
yourself with such an analysis of faith as a grace 
or quality prerequisite. No ! You want only to be 
sure of your fathers word ! In the case of those 
Nazarenes; how should any of their invalids be 
cured by him if they came not to him for the heal- 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 47 

ing — if they derided his claims, and disbelieved his 
teachings ? It is written of others — of those at Jer- 
usalem — "That the blind and the lame came to him 
in the temple, and he healed them all" " As many 
as touched the hem of his garment, were made whole." 
But here they did not come to him. And this sim- 
ply because they did not believe in him, and would 
not be beholden to his grace. It was not the mere 
local absence that prevented the cure. He could 
have cured them at a distance by a word, by a 
will. This he did at times when the faith was 
exercised. But it was the indifference, and the 
disobedience — it was the suspicion, and the aliena- 
tion — it was the incredulity and malignity, that put 
them out of the sphere of the gracious operation. 
It is not the faith, as a matured, ripened grace, 
that is prerequisite to the cure. It is just the re- 
ceptivity and susceptibility, that lays itself open 
to the cure, and invites it, which is, in the very 
nature of things, requisite. The simple believing 
is, of course, necessary and indispensable to the 
receiving. 

A steamer is at the wharf, waiting for pas- 
sengers. The knowledge and faith are necessary, 
which will lead a man to go on board. And this 
is necessary, not as any meritorious quality in the 
passenger, not as any grace of faith, but only as 
a necessity in the nature of the case. His going 
aboard does not pay his fare. No ! But he must 
go aboard, or be left behind. 

Ajid further — this divine law of gracious oper- 
ation will be illustrated by the exceptional m- 



48 LIMITATIONS OF 

stances here mentioned. " He could not do there 
any mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon 
a few sick folk and healed them." These few sick 
folk — how did they obtain the healing as an ex- 
ception to the general rule among the Nazarenes? 
These were doubtless such as, in their sickness, felt 
the need of his cure, and sought it in their hearts 
— and either sought him out, or if they could not 
do this, and could not put themselves in his way, 
were brought to his notice by friends who be- 
lieved, or were sought out by him for the healing, 
which they most of all things desired. This state 
of mind — this readiness to receive the blessing — 
this earnest desire after it — this measure of faith in 
him, that would invite it, and accept it thankfully, 
if it were known, and within reach — this is what 
everywhere he required, and this was all. "Wilt 
thou be made whole?" Wilt thou? "Believest 
thou that I am able to do this ? " 

So it is (in every community), the few sick folk 
upon whom he lays his hands and heals them — 
they are the exceptions to the general rule. Oh ! 
why so few healed, when so many are sick — only 
that they do not count themselves sick, or because 
of obstructions interposed by themselves — not for 
any lack of divine willingness to save — but only 
for lack of their willingness to be saved. They are, 
in their own estimation, whole, and do not need a 
physician — or, they are doubters, and disbelievers, 
quibbling about questions which do not concern 
their vital necessity — and whilst they are argu- 
ing and disputing and cavilling about doctrines, 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 49 

or duties, or means and methods, they perish. But 
these few sick folk have blessed the day they ever 
came to the knowledge of his grace. From off 
their cots of pain and disease — out of the depths 
of their misery, they rejoice in his great salvation. 

And further, it is plain, that it is not any ma- 
tured and perfected faith that is requisite, but only 
such a measure of it, as brings one within the 
sphere of his working, and makes the saving con- 
tact possible. The fountain is gushing with its 
healing waters. But these gushing, healing wa- 
ters are nothing to the man who will not try 
their virtue, and will have none of them for a 
cure. They may flow on forever, like Niagara, 
and he will be unhealed by them. The man may 
be thirsting to death, and yet keeping at his dis- 
tance for some prejudice or mistake he will get 
no slaking of his thirst. Therefore the call is, 
" Come ye to the waters." And faith, that is only 
as yet very partially enlightened, and very weak, 
and very distrustful — if only it bring the sinner to 
Christ for a cure — meets the demand, and makes 
the salvation sure. 

The woman who touched him in the crowd 
thought that she might carry off the healing virtue 
unbeknown to others and even to him — thought 
that she might have the healing all to herself — 
quite a secret — and hidden from the rest. This 
was her first low view of the situation. She was 
ashamed of her disease — could not bear to speak 
of it — nor bear to have it noticed in the crowd, 
before the congregation; just as men and women 
4 



50 LIMITATIONS OF 

are ashamed to own themselves sinners, and pen- 
itents, and to be humiliated before Christ, or to 
confess him before men. All that had well nigh 
proved a fatal barrier to her in the way of the 
grace. But she despaired of other helps. She 
came at the impulse of her strong conviction. 
She ventured on the touch. She came into the 
necessary contact with him, even by the garment 
fringe. And Christ brought her out, and led her 
into the proper development of a believing spirit, 
in a believing life. And to her infinite joy she 
was healed, despite all the defects of her faith, and 
she felt the conscious healing course through all 
her frame. 

Look at the twelve themselves. On the Sea of 
Galilee, with Christ in the vessel — when the storm 
came up and the elemental war threatened to wreck 
their boat and their faith together — when they can 
not trust themselves with him in the same vessel, 
will he let them go down as the just rebuke and 
punishment of their unbelief? No! Does he curse 
them to their face ? Does he even threaten them ? 
No ! For he recognizes the faith in the germ and 
he fosters it. With what infinite tenderness and 
forbearance he says, u Why are ye so fearful, ye 
of little faith?" 

I am often asked — why God does not save all 
men, seeing he is able to save all ? The Scripture 
answers, " Jesus is able to save unto the uttermost, 
all that come unto God by him." We may fairly 
say, God does save all whom he is able to save con- 
sistently with his plan of redemption. And this 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 51 

plan is part of the constitutional law of the uni- 
verse, by which he can save only such as believe. 
Some men claim to hope in a universal salvation. 
But there is no other salvation than this of Christ 
in the Gospel, and it is as universal as the case will 
admit. It is for all ivho tvill. AVhat can be more 
free ? And how can it be for those who icill not ? 

Examine the law of operation, second, as re- 
gards those who are seeking the salvation of oth- 
ers. That Nazareth had been greatly honored and 
blessed as a community. The very fact which 
stood in the w r ay of their faith was the glorious 
truth that Jesus had been reared among them, 
and that they knew him, and his household, all 
of them by name. And that very city, where he 
was one of themselves, was awfully hardened, and 
disbelieving, just by reason of their superior privi- 
leges. No wonder it is written, u He marvelled be- 
cause of their unbelief." 

It is often so — that the communities most dis- 
tinguished for religious privilege — for having the 
church and the household of faith in their midst 
— are the most hardened against Christ himself. 
As though he had made himself cheap and com- 
monplace by living among them — had become 
a stranger by being familiar, and so that a real 
stranger would have had more influence, and 
strange doctrines would carry the day. His won- 
derful works were an old story, and simply incred- 
ible to them, in the view of his well-known human 
relations. This is also the feature of our age — that 
it rejects Christ, simply because he has become so 



52 LIMITATIONS OF 

familiar — rejects him as God, because he has be- 
come man — rejects his Gospel, because his church 
and worship and claims have become an old story. 
His people are known — his brothers and sisters — 
and they are criticised. Some fault is found, and 
readily enough, with one or other of them. The 
age will have something new and strange. Not 
one horne-born, but a stranger will be accepted. 
Not Christ, but any antichrist, without half of his 
credentials and his attestations. Jesus Christ mar- 
vels at your unbelief. But every man's eternal 
future shall be according to his own free choice — 
"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life — 
freely." And whosoever will not, must take the 
opposite, and drink of the waters of death. So 
that Jesus does, in effect, say to every man, " Be 
it unto thee, even as thou wilt." For the future 
life is the fruit, of which this life is the bud and 
blossom. The longings show the belongings. It 
is according to one's path here, that he shall travel 
there. According to your affinities, dispositions, 
attractions and actions shall be your destiny here- 
after. Even of Judas, it is said, he went to his 
own place. This state of the public mind is at 
this moment, a mighty barrier in the way of his 
doing his mighty works. All this parleying and 
arguing about Christ — this speculation as to who 
he is — this derision of him for his human origin 
and antecedents — this denial of his Divine Person 
and offices — all this, stands to-day in the way of 
the grace. For God will not work where there is 
no compatibility with the working. 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 53 

And so again — where the community is overrun 
with worldliness, and there is no spiritual taste — 
no desire after God— and where the church itself is 
poisoned by the low marshy miasma of the world 
— there is no sphere for the gracious operation. 
The Spirit of God, instead of being cherished, is 
grieved — instead of being fostered is quenched — 
sacred things are trodden under foot in the rush 
after the world's vanities, and all the appliances of 
the Gospel are resisted ! All the means of grace, 
that are put in operation, rebound, as from a wall 
of adamant. In the healing career of Jesus among 
the cities and villages of Palestine it is written, 
that they brought to him all that were diseased, and 
them that were possessed with devils, and he cured 
them. The church is an agency set up in the 
world for bringing the outcast and lost to the 
notice of this Jesus — and for bringing them in the 
arms of our faith to his feet. Some are converted, 
that they may labor for the conversion of others. 
And where this agency is lacking — where this 
instrumentality is at a stand-still — the history of 
gracious operation in any church or community is 
like that which is written here, "He did not many 
mighty works there, because of their unbelief." 

God works in accordance with law. It is not, 
therefore, law that works, but God, who is the em- 
bodiment of law. It is a high personal agency. 
He will not work his mighty cures, where there is 
no demand for them — no belief in him, nor in his 
healing. He can not do it, in the very nature of 
things. There will be no revival of religion in the 



54 LIMITATIONS OF 

gambling hall, or in the drinking saloon — no — nor 
where the community, and the church itself, is 
intoxicated with mirth or strife or gambling for 
gain. That is not the atmosphere where the Spirit 
dwells. He is grieved and quenched by such a 
condition of things. So Jesus can not work against 
all the opposing influences of unbelief, even in his 
own city, — among his own people. It is not in 
the nature of things possible. It would be as im- 
possible as for God to lie, or to deny himself. 

Look out and see the few sick folk healed, in 
comparison of the multitudes — a few among the 
thousands. My hearer! You complain that God 
does not save you. But you do not consider that 
you are virtually tying his hands, so that he can 
not do it — any more than he can lie, because he 
can not be false to himself. My brethren, here the 
whole problem resolves itself into an earnest, be- 
lieving application and supplication for the bless- 
ing. Do not charge it upon God's sovereignty, I 
beseech you, or upon an inexorable decree against 
you. The decree of grace and salvation by Christ 
is here plainly revealed and published. If you want 
the blessing, take it — "Ask, and ye shall receive." 

There is a heartless, faithless way of asking, that 
does not amount to seeking, and that never would 
go so far as the actual knocking to enter in. You 
may ask, and not come prepared to take the bless- 
ing that is offered — as a man may apply for some- 
thing, which he is not ready to take home with 
him, for the reason that he has not expected to get 
it, or to get it now. You may not be prepared, 



THE DIVINE WORKING. 55 

in your business affairs, or in your household, or 
in your worldly social engagements — for receiv- 
ing the Holy Ghost into your heart, or into your 
household, just now. And God does not grant it 
to-day, with an understanding that you may take 
it to-morrow. No. The very readiness of God to 
give the blessing on the spot may be that which 
you are not prepared for, and which will always 
stand in the way of your receiving the blessing 
at all. You are never ready to take it just at 
once, and without any further delays — not ready 
to sit down with Christ to the passover table, just 
because you are well aware that there is some 
leaven, not yet searched for and cleared up and 
cast out of your house or your heart. 

My hearers, I know not what barrier stands in 
the way of this divine grace with any of you to- 
day. But plainly, this is the record here, as there. 
"He could do no mighty works, save that he laid 
his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them." 
But I am instructed to say, " It is not the pleasure 
of God that any of you, my hearers, should perish." 
If it were only your pleasure to be saved, and to 
come to him for salvation, then you would be 
saved. If it were even the pleasure of Christian 
friends — of God's praying people here, that these 
should be saved, and if so, they brought them to- 
day, in hearty concert, as those four friends brought 
the paralytic to Christ for a cure, I can not doubt 
that the cure would come. 

But woe to the man or the household, that bars the 
incoming of the Holy Ghost! Better bar the gates 



56 LIMITATIONS OF DIVINE WORKING. 

of the spring, and let no blade of grass or flower 
or blossom appear. Better bar the gates of the 
morning against the glorious sunrise. Better bar 
the door of your dwelling against your own father 
and mother, or against the best beloved of your 
soul. Better bar the chambers of your sense, and 
let the pall of death hang upon all your being, 
than to bar out the Sweet Spirit of God, Quickener, 
Teacher, Comforter, Kenewer, Sanctifier, Saviour. 



IV. 

CHRIST— THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 
"Who went about doing good." — Acts x. 38. 

Beyond the plain statements and predictions of 
the Scriptures, a vision was necessary to reveal to 
the church the great mystery of the ingathering of 
the outside world. And when Peter stands up the 
first time to publish the grand truth, and open the 
door to the Gentiles, he speaks of the Gospel mes- 
sage as embracing the glorious facts of Jesus' life, 
death, and resurrection. And in this statement he 
condenses the whole of this wonderful biography 
into these few words. The life of Jesus full of 
work — full of gracious deeds — full of saving acts — 
is well and truly expressed in this brief phrase, 
"He went about doing good." 

The ingathering of the heathen is yet a mystery 
to the church — not something in its nature inscru- 
table, btLt something that needs divine revelation 
to make it known. It is a mystery, I say, even to 
the church. As though when it had b£en hid from 
ages, it had not at length been fully revealed by 
the advent of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. There 
is still a grave misconception of the mission and 
relation of the church to the outside world. Multi- 



58 CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

tudes around us stand very much in our eyes as 
the Gentiles stood to the Jews. We regard them 
a people to be pitied rather than to be gathered in. 
And we occupy our comfortable sanctuaries, as the 
chosen people of God, and think it enough that the 
outside world around us are not actually debarred ; 
enough that the way is open to them ; enough that 
the ancient ban of exclusion is taken off — not con- 
sidering that ours is a mission to them of grace 
and salvation; not considering that the great work 
of the church is to gather them into the fold. 

Peter's work was shown in the vision at Joppa 
to be positive and aggressive work. It was not 
merely a pictorial exhibition in which all the ani- 
mals clean and unclean were seen to be herded to- 
gether promiscuously and without distinction ; but 
there came forth the commandment along with the 
exhibition, "Kise, Peter, kill and eat!" If he re- 
volted, if his ancient prejudices of race and privi- 
lege demurred at this mixing with the unclean, 
and at this abolishing of old distinction between 
classes and races of people, the word came back to 
him, — a conclusive word, " What God hath cleansed 
that call not thou common." 

It would seem as if the Jewish prejudice of ex- 
clusiveness and church privilege and prerogative 
were clinging yet to our minds, and that yet an- 
other vision would be necessary to make plain to 
us our duty to go forth in our mission of evan- 
gelizing the outside masses. "The mystery hid 
from ages and made known in Jesus Christ" has 
yet to be reopened to the Christian church. It 



CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 59 

was nobly exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ 
himself. The grand duty of the church is like the 
Divine Master to go about doing good. 

Look at this simple phrase as the definition and 
description of Jesus' life. Strange enough that 
there are two opposite characters representing the 
spirit w^orld, who are described in the Scripture as 
going about among men: the one walking about 
as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour; 
and the other, this Jesus, going about doing good. 

Through Galilee and through Judea this was it; 
one aim, one ambition, nothing else. He was not 
at the wedding at Cana simply to be entertained 
as a guest; much less to indulge even an innocent 
recreation from his pressing cares and business; 
least of all, to vindicate his social claims, or to 
keep up his social position and that of his disci- 
ples, with the families of the town. No ! his hour 
was coming to do a grand work of providing for 
the family and for the guests, and thus to signify 
his willingness to work wonders for our refresh- 
ment and satisfaction, for body and soul forever. 

And where was he anywhere in any such re- 
lation or condition as to throw any doubt upon 
his work of helping, healing, comforting, saving? 
Where w r as he ever seen in any attitude or con- 
nection to cast a shadow upon the glory of such a 
life? When could any one have ever suspected 
that he had any private aims to subserve or any 
sinister, selfish objects to accomplish? Nay! all 
those accusations and mean insinuations of his 
being a man gluttonous and a w x inebibber, or of 



60 CHRIST— THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

his wishing to make himself a king, and of his 
aiming to overthrow the nation, were only the 
fabrications of their envy and jealousy; only the 
assaults of sheer malice to get up some popular 
outcry against him. No man of them who knew 
him at all was ever honest in any such charge 
against him. Never! You could see his life every- 
where disproving this whole batch of slanders. He 
and his disciples stood ready to point to those won- 
derful works as the patent overpowering answer 
to such shamefaced invective. 

What town or city or village of Galilee and Ju- 
dea and Samaria even, was not made glad by his 
healing mercy? There was Capernaum and Beth- 
saida and Nain and Nazareth and Samaria and 
Sychem and Bethany and Bethlehem and Jericho 
and Jerusalem. And there were the outside coasts 
of Tyre and Sidon. He was never resting, never 
intermitting his work. In the house of friend and 
stranger; by the road-side; in the temple and at 
the pool where invalids resorted; on the sea, on the 
shore; by day, by night; Sabbaths and week-days 
— busy, busy, busy; always at work — curing lep- 
ers, healing blind and deaf and lame ; casting out 
devils, rebuking fevers, raising the d,ead. He took 
his sleep on the boat, upon the passage — the only 
sleep of his we read of; agonized while his disci- 
ples slept in Gethsemane ; talked with Moses and 
Elias while his disciples were overpowered with 
sleep on the Transfiguration Mount. Eead the 
brief accounts of his work: " There came great 
multitudes unto him and he healed them all" "As 



CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 61 

many as touched the hem of his garment were 
made whole." u He healed all manner of sickness 
and all manner of disease, among the people." 
And here in the text. u He went about doing 
good and healing all them that were possessed 
with the devil." The busiest man that the world 
ever saw was this Jesus. 

And, secondly, this religion of Jesus Christ is 
precisely adapted to the masses. It carries upon 
its very front an invitation to the laboring classes : 
"Come unto me all ye that labor." 

We have missed the sense of this when we have 
over-spiritualized it; when we have explained it 
wholly of the inward soul-troubles of men. And 
then, at once, men have been prone to understand 
it of a spiritual quality or condition prerequisite 
and meritorious. And in the absence of this state 
of mind and heart they have thought there was 
no hope for them. But no ! Its voice is to all 
who toil and worry and sweat under the curse — 
that immense majority of men — the workmen and 
laborers of every kind, whose cry is for rest in all 
their weariness and worn condition ; to whom his 
own Sabbaths ought to come as a special joy. 
And then the masses — the outside multitudes — 
these are yet at our doors, under the shadow of 
our sanctuaries. 

And this Gospel is precisely for them. It is for 
the poor. Under this economy of Christ it is pre- 
sumed that the poor have the Gospel preached to 
them. "The poor," he says, "ye have always with 
you." And this religion is suited to such wants 



62 CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

and woes as poverty brings. While the poor are 
standing aside and looking upon the sanctuary as 
only for those in easy circumstances; while they 
hold themselves to be debarred by the usages of 
Christian society ; repelling the poor by failing to 
invite them and by failing to notice them when 
they come, as if it was no part of a Christian's 
calling to consort with sinners of the Gentiles; — 
all this while, this very Gospel that we preach is 
specially addressed to these classes who are so 
largely absent; who are thus virtually excluded. 
And the full Gospel is best preached to such, and 
can not be effectively preached nor successfully 
preached where such are not found in the con- 
gregation. Where in the sermon on the mount 
it is once said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," 
it is again said, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is 
the kingdom of God." 

And further, this Gospel is fitted for the offcast. 
When we see this Christianity go to the abject 
and degraded, we see it working in its proper 
sphere, doing its greatest wonders, and proving 
its divine origin, as in no other way. 

We have our genteel congregations who come 
and go, who have their pews as they have their 
houses — all as their private property. And the 
whole aspect of the matter is, that the sanctuary 
is a sort of religious club-house, where persons in- 
clined to religious things buy for themselves and 
for their families a place and a partnership in 
whatever is to be found here: building, preacher, 
music, society, all their own. Others, for the most 



CHRIST— THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 63 

part, it is thought, are not expected, not wanted; 
and though such would not be put out nor frowned 
upon, but even welcomed, yet this is judged to be 
rather by constraint of Christian politeness than 
by any zeal to do them good. 

But look, and see this Christianity where it goes 
out to the forlorn and wretched and offcast, and 
takes the Gospel to the humblest cot and kindly 
commends this Jesus to the sorrowing and de- 
graded and lost! You see it put gladness into 
the darkest garret; into the foulest, vilest pit, or 
den of iniquity. And where it lifts up the most 
abandoned of our race and imparts to such a new 
nature, there it is that Christianity asserts its divine 
power. And there we see a proof of it such as no 
argument of books, neither miracles nor prophe- 
cies even, could give. It is the external and inter- 
nal evidence together. It is therefore in the cities 
as the centres of population and of human inter- 
ests, where life is teeming w r ith busy energy in 
good and evil, and crowded with temptations and 
trials and vices; it is here where the masses con- 
gregate of various races and pursuits and princi- 
ples, and where the throng is full of cross purposes 
and conflicts ; it is here that this religion of Christ 
comes in and addresses itself equally to all. Here 
it ought to reap its grandest harvests, and here it 
ought to gather its most splendid trophies. So it 
is said, "Jesus began to teach and preach in their 
cities.'" 

All the squalor of the hovel, all the revel and 
riot of the dramshop, all the vile, profane, brutish 



64 CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

degradation of the promiscuous crowd, where every 
vestige of self-respect is long ago lost and noth- 
ing is left but base indulgence — all this is to be 
reached and lighted up and cheered and blessed 
with this religion of Christ. No other power in 
the universe can do it! And where this Gospel 
goes out on its path of conquest it subjugates the 
stoutest rebellion, elevates the most abject condi- 
tion, and wins over the most alien and hostile 
disposition to Christ. This is seen wherever it is 
fairly tried. 

Why then is not this grand remedy for fallen 
humanity put in utmost use? Why is the Gos- 
pel provision stored in the churches as in bonded 
warehouses and not brought out and distributed 
among the multitudes? Is it enough that Chris- 
tians furnish the church accommodation ? But 
they have not even done that. Must careless men 
be left to build themselves churches and to sustain 
the ministry of themselves, on the principle that 
if they want them they will have them? What 
if those who need them most, want them least? 
You had as well demand that the fish in the sea 
should make themselves a fishing-boat and net to 
take them in. And Christian ministers and Chris- 
tian members are fishers of men. 

And it is not enough to open the sanctuary 
doors, nor even the doors of your pews. You must 
go out seeking, inviting, urging them to come in. 
This we have not done. The net is not to be kept 
in the boat. It is to be cast out, and cast out in 
the deep and on the right side of the ship. 



CHRIST— THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 65 

I take it that just here is the shameful neglect 
of our churches. And the ground of their great 
inefficiency is this: the Gospel that is made for 
the masses and meant for the masses, does not 
go to the masses, simply because the church mem- 
bership does not go out among the masses with 
proper zeal and tact to gather them in. 

First, then, I say the u going about" is to be 
done after the pattern of the Master. He did not 
sit in state in the Temple at Jerusalem and wait 
for the people to seek him out, else neither Zac- 
cheus the rich man, nor Bartimeus the blind beg- 
gar, nor thousands of others, would have been 
reached. He went out seeking as well as saving 
the lost. 

And here it is that pure religion finds its prac- 
tical definition, in the church as well as in the 
Scripture, "Pure religion and undefiled before God 
and the Father" is this. What is it? To visit — 
to visit. It is not as if a mere fashionable visit- 
ing could be meant, but to go about and find out 
the distressed, to visit the fatherless and widows 
in their affliction; to go in search of the forlorn 
and careless and bring them into the churches. 

I know the difficulties. You are disinclined to 
visiting, or you have a large circle of your own, or 
you are doubtful how you would be received by 
strangers on any religious errand, or you think it 
would be forwardness or presumption on your part, 
or you think of others who could do it better; 
and for one reason or another, the great ma- 
jority of the church members excuse themselves 
5 



66 CHRIST— THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

and scarcely charge their minds with any such 
duty. 

Elisha the prophet went outside of Israel to the 
poor widow of Shunem. She was in great trouble. 
There was a hard-hearted creditor threatening her 
for his pay. She had nothing left in the house 
but her cruse of oil. And the prophet made that 
cruse of oil go so far that it filled all the ves- 
sels she could get from her neighbors, and lo ! 
by means of his visit the poor widow was rich 
enough in oil to pay her debt. Christianity does 
this very thing; makes our little go so far. It 
increases our scanty supply; multiplies our few 
loaves to a livelihood. 

What multitudes of our own city are living out- 
side of our sanctuaries, little cared for or looked 
after; and what an account have we to render 
for these ! The church is asleep to the astound- 
ing facts, and yet the very special province of 
the church is this aggressive work among the out- 
side multitudes. 

And the proper power of the church is seen in 
this very work of ingathering. 

Some one was curious to know how Mr. Spur- 
geon was ever able to fill his immense tabernacle 
with a steady crowd of five or six thousand hear- 
ers. Naturally enough he was written to, to tell 
the great secret of filling the church. He an- 
swered, " My members fill the church, not I. It is 
by their bringing in others, It is their success not 
mine. They back me up," he says, " through the 
week they invite others to their pews, they seek 



CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 67 

out new-comers, they bring in new church-goers." 
I asked him, how he ever succeeded in visiting his 
thirty-five hundred members. He said, "I don't 
visit them, except in actual necessities. My elders 
do the bulk of the visiting, and they inform me 
of the cases that require my personal attention." 
But then came the question, how his elders could 
command the time; and the only answer was, 
"They doit." 

I ask now, would it not be a sweet relief from 
the constant rush and pressure of business cares to 
make a visit or two a day for the church and for 
Christ. There are difficulties, I grant it; but the 
cry is commonly, "I am too busy." Must God, 
then, spoil a man's business and break him up and 
set him high and dry with nothing to do in order 
to get from him some service for the church? The 
charge of Christ in the parable, " occupy till I 
come" means "Do business till I come." Is not 
this verily one's business? Is your own secular 
business, as you call it, to be put before the busi- 
ness of Christ ? Must the church die out and the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ fail in a community, be- 
cause the men, both officers and members, are too 
busy to give it attention ? 

Is there any fair reason why every sitting-place 
in every one of our sanctuaries should not be filled, 
except the people outside think they are not want- 
ed in the sanctuary; that they will not be wel- 
comed by the pew-holders, or will not be respected 
among the worshippers — who seem inclined to have 
it all to themselves ? Meanwhile the thousands of 



68 CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

families stay away, and religion declines, and the 
blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ is charged with in- 
efficiency. The merchant would issue his circulars 
and send out his travelling agents, if he saw his 
business falling off or his custom declining. Oh, 
yes ! and every one knows this, and it is the testi- 
mony we have heard from a great worker in city 
missions, that the Sabbath congregations of mis- 
sion chapels are just in proportion to the visits of 
the week; and it is commonly so in the churches. 
And if members are remiss in Christian sociabili- 
ties the church suffers, and the fault is simply that 
of carelessness, inactivity, sluggishness, or coldness 
in the life-currents of the body. 

Some minister has lately said that so far as his 
experience goes, the church fails in the city from 
the absorption of the men in business, and from the 
absorption of the women in pleasure. It is not 
quite so in all cases. Dr. James Hamilton of 
London speaks of the heartless industries that so 
absorb attention. He means the mere mechanical. 
Women as well as men fail in church duties from 
over-attention to business. Martha is careful and 
troubled about routine work of the household, and 
Mary sits still in the house at Christ's feet. It is 
the charge of the household which, in some cases, 
seems to make it impossible to do any thing out of 
doors; but could not some time be rescued for this 
Christian work? Would not the incessant watch 
and worry of the housekeeping be relieved by step- 
ping aside daily to look in upon others for Christ ? 

And then, too, much time and labor might be 



CHRIST— THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 69 

saved for the church if the costly alabaster boxes 
of precious ointment were broken upon the head 
and feet of Jesus. The recourse is now to employ 
suitable men and women for visitors ; and this, at 
least, the church could do. The missionary alter- 
native is go or send; but no substitute can alto- 
gether release the principal from his or her ap- 
propriate work. And the members are better as 
volunteer visitors, than any who could be sent as 
employees — if only the members have a heart for 
their work. 

And it is not merely going about; but it is 
going about doing good that is requisite. Offices 
of Christian kindness which bring a practical Chris- 
tianity in contact with men, bring it to the bedside 
of the sick and to the hut and hovel of the desti- 
tute, and which penetrate even to the dark dens 
of iniquity, reaching out this salvation to the 
lost. 

This is the Christianity that is needed to do the 
work of the church. Take the church to the thou- 
sands who will not come to the church, and so the 
church becomes filled and swarming with those 
who have had the practical proof of its value. It- 
is easy to say, " Be ye warmed ! " and " Be ye 
filled ! " without opening the hand to supply the 
want. There are a thousand questions that are 
naturally raised in the mere matter of formal vis- 
iting, even where it is for the best Christian pur- 
poses ; but where it is mixed with Christian benefi- 
cence — where a lively Christian sympathy goes 
along with the call, and a hearty desire to do 



70 CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

good is manifest, there goes the mighty power of 
Christian example and persuasion of a Christian 
life. Therefore the Christian visiting that is given 
as the first part of the inspired definition of true 
Christianity is joined with the most important prac- 
tical requisite — for the visitor himself to keep him- 
self unspotted from the world. A man's efforts to 
do good to others ought to be sustained by his 
own solid Christian character. May not this be a 
reason why so many hold back from any thing 
active and positive and aggressive in the church ; 
that they are conscious themselves of inconsisten- 
cies and contradictions of character, and of being 
not unspotted. 

Plain enough is it then, that what the church 
needs, to be an effective and successful agency for 
Christ in the world, is to go out into the world and 
not seclude itself; not shut itself up from contact 
and sympathy and communion with the outside 
multitude ; but to circulate, to visit the needy and 
neglected and distressed, and to be in all its mem- 
bership an example of purity and piety, diffus- 
ing the influence of a holy life, and evincing a 
heartiness in every good word and work. What 
if every family in the church should charge itself 
with the responsibility of always having another 
family under its care — to bring into the sanctuary 
and lead to Christ? This going about doing good 
can never be accomplished by staying in the house 
and living to one's self, careless of others' wants 
and ignorant of the necessities around. 

You ask how you can do any thing. You think 



CHRIST — THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 71 

only of working by societies or committees. You 
think of the great city and can not see how you 
are to reach the masses. Begin with your own 
family, your domestics and dependents, and your 
own neighborhood. You will not go far till you 
will find some one to be helped and led to Christ. 
Work for the Sabbath-school. Make an effort with 
the neglected boys on the streets to gather them 
in. Families are reached by this means. " To do 
good and to communicate forget not, for with such 
sacrifices God is well pleased." Benevolence is the 
popular word, but beneficence is the true word. We 
ought to have gotten past the mere well-ivitting 
and even icell-wishing that falls short of well-doing. 
That is a failure. It is beneficence that is called for 
as the proper fruit of benevolence, and need I say, 
that such beneficence is a blessing to the doer him- 
self. Just as the overflow of the fountain purges 
it; just as the giving of a light to another from 
your own lamp in the midnight doubles the light 
that shines around your own path. 

And a city which cares nothing for evangelizing 
the masses, reaps an awful reward in the ram- 
pant vice, the corruption of public morals, the rob- 
bery, fraud and murder which infest the commu- 
nity, and make the city a hell on earth. And 
where the church is satisfied with elegant propri- 
eties of worship, and is not hard at work reclaim- 
ing the masses to Christ, the plagues which God 
will visit on the city and the land will come up 
into our windows, and vice will threaten to break 
in at our doors, and it will require a miracle to 



72 CHRIST— THE IDEAL MISSIONARY. 

save us from the fiery judgment that comes rain- 
ing down from heaven. 

And an active church, a working church, a so- 
ciable church, is a successful church. It is the 
definition of true religion, therefore, because it 
is the definition of Jesus' life among men. " He 
went about doing good." And he lives most and 
best for Jesus, and he attains most surely to his 
glory and reward, of whom it may be said by the 
living at his death, and written by beholders, for 
his epitaph, " He went about doing good." 



V. 

THE LAW OF THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 

"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou 
wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? Jesus an- 
swered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my 
words : and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, 
and make our abode with him." — John xiv. 22-23. 

There are laws in grace, as there are laws in 
nature. I love to think of this natural world, as 
so constructed as to symbolize and shadow forth 
the higher realm of grace. I love to think of our 
adorable Lord Jesus Christ as the Creator of this 
lower framework of material things, by which he 
would illustrate the higher department of spiritual 
things — using the earthly to exhibit the heavenly. 
So that when he came to his own, he made the 
rose and lily to speak, and the field and the vine 
to stand forth, as pictorial images of something 
belonging to the soul; and even making our com- 
mon bodily sicknesses the avenue by which he 
reached our deeper spiritual wants. 

God has been pleased to manifest himself in 
places devoted to his worship. To the fallen pair, 
though not in Eden, yet at the gate, he dwelt be- 
tween the cherubim. At the altar of sacrifice he 



74 THE LAW OF THE 

displayed himself in response to the offering there. 
At the Tabernacle and in the Temple, he revealed 
himself in the Shekinah — the luminous cloud of 
the visible presence resting over the mercy-seat. 
And in the synagogue and in the Christian sanc- 
tuary he has appointed to be approached, and^ by 
signal manifestations all down the ages he has made 
the place of his feet glorious. Not now, as of old, 
confined to any exclusive seat, for gorgeous cere- 
monial and for a whole nation's assemblage. Not 
now preferring even the grand cathedral, amidst 
the lavishment of wealth and the embellishments 
of aesthetic offerings. But bound by great moral 
laws, operating everywhere the same, and equally 
on earth as in heaven — laws which reach down to 
the heart's depths, and which estimate the exter- 
nals of worship only as they are the expressions 
of inward devotion. But not to all alike, in any 
worshipping assembly, does God manifest himself. 
The sun shines for all, yet not so as to reach and 
gladden those who hide themselves in garrets and 
cellars, or who bandage their eyes rather than be 
beholden to the light of day. 

Here, in our text, a profound truth is touched, 
by this inquiry of Judas. And when it is noti- 
fied, that this Judas is not the Judas Iscariot, but 
another and opposite Judas — a friend, and not a 
foe — the question has its highest significance from 
the contrast. " Lord, how is it that thou wilt man- 
ifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? " 

What is the law of the divine manifestation? 
Here is a mind, laboring with the deepest prob- 



DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 75 

lems of Gospel grace, as they stand related to the 
divine sovereignty, and to the human volition and 
action. Here is a man, moved to the depths by 
the question, how it is that so large a proportion 
of his fellow-men have no conception of the Gos- 
pel, though living under its blaze. How is it ? he 
asks. There are doubtless these two great classes 
of men in all the ages — the discipleship, and the 
outside world! And the case with these, respect- 
ively, as to the divine manifestation, is opposite, 
the one to the other. And the momentous ques- 
tion is here propounded to the Master himself — 
Hew is it? Is it a matter to be referred simply 
and only to the divine will, and the divine decree 
— as wholly arbitrary with God ? Is it simply to 
say, that to one man God pleases to reveal himself, 
and not to another ? Men so caricature the divine 
fore-ordination, which is everywhere taught in the 
Scripture, and which is essential to the very idea 
of God; and then with a partial and one-sided 
statement of the matter, they denounce the divine 
prerogative as a sheer outrage. 

But there is a human side as well as a divine side 
of the matter, and the over-statement of either is 
a misstatement, and it is only the half truth, which 
becomes falsehood. 

The divine fore-ordination is set forth in the 
Bible as a comfort to the people of God, and not 
anywhere as any discouragement to any other 
creature. They who love God are addressed and 
spoken of as elect before the foundation of the 
world, and it is an infinite comfort to such. Is it 



76 THE LAW OF THE 

any thing repulsive to the wife to be told by the 
husband that he had always loved her from the 
first sight of her in childhood? No. 

But there is no man who is not freely invited 
to all the benefits of this election. And nothing 
is required of any man but his own election of 
these benefits, corresponding and responsive to the 
divine election of himself. Pause here, and listen 
to the profound and beautiful answer from the lips 
of Jesus himself — and see how it is. And if there 
be a creature under the whole heaven who can 
take exception to this law, as any severity of God, 
let him speak. 

This divine manifestation to one man and not 
to another, is here referred in the text, first of all, 
to the human taste and inclination. 

Jesus' answer to the question of how it is, is 
this; "If a man love me, he will keep my word." 

Yes ! If a man love me. And this everywhere, 
naturally and necessarily, conditions the whole case. 
Take any thing that is to be manifested. There 
is, for example, in our great city, the glorious pic- 
ture of the Yosemite, or the "Heart of the Andes." 
It is on public exhibition. And the advertisement 
is blazoned in the public prints, and it is hung over 
the door-tvay of the hall, and it is even thrust out 
upon the path of the passer-by. It is on exhibi- 
tion free. But what cares the rushing throng? 
" One to his farm, another to his merchandise ! " 
Few pause, and enter in ! It is matter of taste and 
inclination. The picture is there. It is there on 
free exhibition. Whosoever will, may come and 



DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 77 

see. But only here and there does any one turn 
aside from his common business to enjoy the spec- 
tacle. "If a man love painting." That is the point! 
If he have a taste for high art. If the glowing 
colors on the canvas have a power to reach his 
soul and to put him into delicious communion 
with nature — so as to ravish his sense and bring 
him into that sweet bondage to the high ideal — if 
this be so — then this is the inward condition that 
controls the result. This is the susceptibility that 
is wrought upon, and charmed, and captivated, 
and without which, that glowing canvas would 
be to the eye only as an idle tale. 

Take a different man into the presence of that 
masterpiece. What is that to him ? He has no 
taste for any such manifestation of nature's beau- 
ties, as w r rought by the pencil of the artist, and 
he turns away to the gratification of lower pas- 
sions, or to the dull, mechanical routine of his daily 
life. 

In the personal matter of the text, the key to 
the situation is just the inward taste which decides 
the affinity. This is the divine statement. "If 
a man love me, he will keep my word." 

And this the natural and necessaiy law of ac- 
tion. The word, written and preached, is the rev- 
elation of God in Scripture — as the personal word 
is the revelation of God in our nature. Each is, 
in its way, an incarnation. And the glory of the 
Scripture, wherein it is living and powerful, is that 
the God incarnate shines through the page, and 
gleams upon our view in all the living record. 



78 THE LAW OF THE 

To say then (as Jesus here says, in explaining 
his manifestation), "If a man love me, he will keep 
my word" is only to say, that the personal af- 
finitv will decide the action of the man, in mak- 
ing him attentive to the word of the one whom 
he loves — in making him cherish it, and follow it 
in his living. 

And this word of Scripture is itself a medium 
of the divine manifestation. He looks here just as 
he puts his eye to the glass of the stereoscope, to 
find the picture in its rounded, lifelike proportions. 

AYhat then, if the picture on exhibition be that 
of -Christ Healing the Sick," or of Eaphaefs " Dres- 
den Madonna?" Then it is also a question of the 
subject. What is the man's taste, and how will it 
lead him? That Madonna, world-renowned, has a 
separate chamber in the great gallery at Dresden. 
Will you enter in and see it there? If a man love 
Jesus, he will gaze with a very special interest and 
rapture upon whatever reveals him, and even upon 
these triumphs of art, because they aim to deline- 
ate the glories of his Friend and Saviour. And for 
the same reason, and if he have this personal love, 
he will study the Scripture, and receive the mes- 
sages of God's word in the sanctuary, and find 
himself in personal communion with the beloved 
object. 

I have seen American travellers in the Holy 
Land, caring nothing for Bethlehem, and Xaza- 
reth, and Jerusalem, and longing to get back to 
the opera-houses and theatres in Paris and Milan, 
heeding not the footprints of Jesus, or the sacred 



DIVTNK MANIFESTATION. 70 

memorials and monuments of his life and de.ath. 
You can see the same taste here around you and 
even amongst the Sabbath assembly. 

So I have seen men, to whose eye all the gran- 
deurs of the Yosemite were nothing at all: to 
whom that stupendous display of God's majesty 
and creative power was only a dull and toilsome 
sight — who would stop on the way to the Vernal 
Fall to fish in the stream, rather than go on to 
gaze at the beauties that God has so concentrated 
in that fall itself. 

If you ask. then, how if is that Jesus will mani- 

- himself to his disciples and not unto the world : 
if you will know the philosophy of this distinc- 
tion in so momentous a matter. I protest, that you 
shall not charge it upon the mere sovereign dea 
of God, to display himself to one man rather than 
to another, as though there were no human side 
to the case. Come here to the plain matter of 
fact, and to the human aspect of it all. and see how 
it is determined by your own tastes and liking - 

Moral beauty ;f display itself to depraved 

tastes, so as to be appreciated. There can not 
be any compulsion of love. Your tastes are all 
worldly, and not at -all spiritual and heavenly. 
Then vou do not. in such inward condition, afford 
any susceptibility to the glories 6f Christ, however 
fullv thev mav be revealed. It is the lkrht shin- 
ing in another sphere — or rather, it is the light 
shining in the darkness, and the darkness compre- 
hending it not. Xo eye for that. Blind to that 
kind of beautv. The fish in the mammoth cave 



80 THE LAW OF THE 

have no eyes, because their habitat is darkness. 
It is simply in your breast, a cloud so thick, so 
impenetrable by the noonday sun, as that no im- 
pression is made upon it, any more than if the sun 
had never shone to gladden the earth with his 
beams. The colors in the most beautiful flowers 
are not essential and inherent qualities. They are 
only the rays of the common sunlight, which that 
flower absorbs by its own peculiar texture. 

What now, should one complain, if, at the great 
Handel Festival, he should find no pleasure, sim- 
ply because he had no taste for classic music, had 
not cared for it nor cultivated it ? Or if he would 
not even look over the programme, and get the 
grand ideas of the oratorio — the " Messiah," or the 
" Creation " — and should feel no sympathy with the 
performance, because he could not enter at all into 
the music or the sentiment? Ask then, amongst 
the auditors, "How is it that there the great Han- 
del manifests himself to some, and not to others?" 
If a man love the art and the subject, then it is 
all to him a splendid manifestation. But if he has 
a taste only for the song of the brothel, and for the 
low bacchanal, then we readily understand how it 
is, that in all that grand performance of such mas- 
terpieces, there is no manifestation to him. 

That wonderful* statue of the "Dead Christ," by 
Bernini, at Borne. You may go down into the 
crypt of St. John Lateran, and you shall see noth- 
ing. All is darkness. But if the guide go along 
with you, with his torch in hand, some will see, in 
the light of that manifestation, only the exquisite 



DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 81 

marble form, almost transparent. But to the lover 
of Jesus, it is the form of his best friend, and there, 
as nowhere else in all the world, either in painting 
or in statuary, he can see the dead Christ in the 
arms of his mother! 0, what a manifestation! 
But only in those conditions. 

Look now at the holy scene where, in the sanctu- 
ary, Jesus especially manifests himself to the church 
as he does not to the world. It is the peculiar, 
chosen spot of divine manifestation. It is Geth- 
semane, Calvary, and the garden sepulchre of Ari- 
mathea, all together, in one blaze of splendid, glo- 
rious revelation. What a table ! What a feast ! 
How is it, that it is to only a portion, and a small 
portion of the public worshippers, that Jesus man- 
ifests himself there — that to so many it is noth- 
ing but the bits of bread, and the common cup — 
the humblest, most empty and unattractive of all 
earthly entertainments ? And how is it ? how is it, 
that to a few it is the most hallowed spot of 
heavenly friendships, where God and Christ come 
down to be guests of the poor sinner; and yet the 
table is the Lord's own, and without any parallel 
this side of heaven — grander and more glorious 
than any banquet of kings? How is it? How? 

Look at the two Judases at the first Supper! 
One of them (the Iscariot) nursing in his heart 
the bloody thought of a traitor to his master, see- 
ing in the Lord Jesus only a victim for his base 
designs; his depraved vision veiled to all his glo- 
ries. And the other Judas (not Iscariot), clinging 
to his Lord with all the devotion of love, and be- 



82 THE LAW OF THE 

holding him in all his fond manifestations at the 
table. How is it? What can explain the phe- 
nomena — that make these men of the same circle, 
and of the same name, the veriest opposites? I 
tell you it is all a matter of taste! Judas Iscar- 
iot's judgment of the alabaster box betrays him as~ 
the thief that he is. And this inquiry of the oth- 
er Judas discovers in him the yearning for the 
world's well-being, which proves his true disci- 
pleship. 

Yes. I tell you it is all a matter of taste. And 
you have not the taste for any such manifesta- 
tion, nor the appetite for any such feast of Christ ! 
Pity! Pity. A thousand times, pity ! If one have 
no taste for the good, no taste for the beautiful, no 
fondness for knowledge, no relish for the truth, no 
affinity for moral excellence, then he is, by this 
very constitution of things, ruled out of the sphere 
of all highest and purest enjoyments. 

It is nothing arbitrary with God. No. It is no 
naked decree of divine election, without any re- 
sponsive election, or corresponding choice in the 
human breast ! No ! For love is just that quality 
and exercise of soul that can not possibly admit 
of compulsion. And hence the law of the divine 
manifestation is perfectly natural and simple, and 
determined by the very necessity of things, and 
not a matter of mere decrees with which we have 
nothing to do. No! It is the same great law as 
governs every manifestation of moral excellence 
in all the universe — for angels, for devils, for time 
and for eternity. The law is fair and beautiful 



DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 83 

and true and good. Do you ask again, How it is? 
Jesus gives the answer. "If a man love me, he 
will keep my words, and my Father will love him, 
and tve will come unto him, and make our abode 
with him." Take if you please, the manifestation 
of God in nature — where the great questions come 
to view at the threshold of all created things. 
Is there a God — a personal Creator and Euler of 
the universe? I ask, Is this a question of pure 
reason? Nay, but of the disposition also. The 
heart rebels against the creative claims. Men call 
for laws of nature, orders, processes, forces, inani- 
mate and impersonal agencies — and make the uni- 
verse mere machine work, without a machinist, so 
as to escape the personal responsibility to a per- 
sonal intelligent cause. Jesus says, "If a man 
love me." Oh, yes! Then nothing is so beautiful 
as God in nature, and everywhere is seen his foot- 
print, and everywhere is heard the hymning of 
his praise. But if a man love me not! Oh, then, 
nothing is so welcome as to displace God from his 
own universe, and to get rid of the very idea of 
God. 

Take also, for example, the manifestation of Jesus 
Christ as God. Is this a thing of the reason alone, 
or even of revelation alone? No! But also a mat- 
ter of the taste and disposition. The man who has 
in his soul no appreciation of the God-man — who 
has in his sense of need no necessity for a divine 
Saviour — he can not readily accredit him as divine, 
can not entertain the idea of his divinity, can not 
find any place for it in his sphere of thought, can 



84 THE LAW OF THE 

not receive and accept such a being in his personal 
relations. And the Unitarian Creed, as it was, and 
is, with the Jews, is the outgrowth of a self-right- 
eousness or a self-expiation, that discards the great 
truth of a divine provision for men. If the neces- 
sity of our case be finite, and not infinite, then the 
Saviour and the salvation must be finite also. 

But there is a further step in this law of the di- 
vine manifestation. The law is throughout a law 
of moral harmonies in advancing operation. It is 
the common and universal law of personal affini- 
ties in the actual progression. The man who in- 
clines to God finds God inclined to him. It is 
infinitely mutual. The spring-tide sun draws out 
the violet from the sod, and so also the violet 
draws the sun, and receives his beams in beautiful 
manifestation of rainbow tints upon its bosom. 

But note the law of progress here. Observe. 
This keeping of Christ's word, as published in 
the Scripture and in the sanctuary, is that con- 
dition of things in icliich the Father shows himself 
as infinitely loving to such, and in which he draws 
near to such, in expressions of personal love. This 
is the higher, closer manifestation that may be said 
to be naturally conditioned upon the former. Here 
occurs a fuller intimacy through the word — a per- 
sonal communion through the written and inspired 
communication. Just as letters from a distant and 
beloved friend awaken all the tenderest sympa- 
thies, and draw out the inmost soul in response, 
and the affection comes to be aglow, and the 
friendship is cemented on both sides. So, such a 



DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 85 

heart as is responsive to God's word of revealed 
love finds God exhibiting himself more and more 
in that love, and entering in more fully to the 
chambers of the soul as a guest. If a man love 
me, then it follows that he will keep my word as 
it is delivered to him; then, by the same law of 
manifestation, it further follows that the Father 
will love him. And then, as a crown and climax 
of the manifestation, the Father and Son together 
will come unto him, and make their abode with 
him. 

The picture in the Eevelation is of one stand- 
ing at the door of the church, and knocking for 
admittance. And the natural and necessary con- 
dition in the case of every man is, that the inward 
response shall be the signal for entrance and friend- 
ship and fellowship, and there is, at length, the 
blessed banqueting there. "If any man hear my 
voice and open the door, I will come into him, and 
sup with him, and he with me." This is the clear 
delineation of the whole case. This is the full 
explanation of all the phenomena. 

And further, this law of the divine manifesta- 
tion involves principles, which apply as well to the 
negative as to the positive side, and as well in eter- 
nity as time. It is night now in other quarters of 
the globe, not because the sun is blotted out or 
exhausted. No. But simply because there the 
earth is turning her face away from the sun. So, 
also, it is the side of the moon which leans in her 
circuits towards the sun, which gets all the radi- 
ance which she reflects upon our planet, while the 



86 THE LAW OF THE 

other side must, by the same necessity, be pitchy 
darkness, and winter's cold! Does any one ask 
then, How it is that God allows in his universe 
any place of perdition ? It is simply because men, 
who have perdition in them, can go nowhere else, 
by all the laws of moral gravitation — by all the 
affinities of moral being. Just as a stone sinks 
and a feather floats — by law. It is even a pro- 
vision for a great necessity, and no arbitrary dic- 
tum of God. It can not be otherwise. In the 
constitution of moral nature, by the law which 
eternally regulates all moral destinies, it must be 
so! The sinner must go to his own place. No 
power in the universe could adapt heaven to the 
lost soul. Lost to all right conceptions of God — 
to all right views of truth, and to all holy princi- 
ples of action — to all right tastes and affections — 
there is no atmosphere in heaven which such an 
one could breathe — no pleasure in heaven which 
such an one could relish or tolerate. Do you ask 
of Jesus again, How is it that thou wilt not man- 
ifest thyself unto the world ? 

Has the question in your mind ever taken the 
shape of the profane inquiry, How is it that God 
can be so cruel as to send any man to an eternal 
perdition? Then, I say, there is no cruelty on 
God's part, but only a high and absolute neces- 
sity that must determine the manifestation on both 
sides. And as heaven consists in God's manifesta- 
tion of his glories to those who love him, and it 
is all blessedness and rapture to them; so whose 
fault is it, if to those who hate him, he turns his 



DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 87 

back, or if turning their back on him, that very- 
manifestation of himself which makes a heaven 
to the good, makes a hell to the wicked, simply 
by their own adverse position? 

Look at Judas Iscariot. He was simply a fully 
developed sinner, lost amidst the highest exhibi- 
tions of Christ's love, and lost to all that is lovely 
and good in the universe. Where must he go? 
Where in all the realm of God's government? 
Where? Only to his own place — where every 
thing is akin to him, where his boon companions 
are, where he naturally and necessarily belongs. 
No power of all the angels, as they reap the har- 
vest of the world, could thrust the humblest be- 
ing into hell (or into heaven), against this law of 
moral affinity. 

And so it is that Jesus further explains, and on 
the negative side of this great question, just to 
show how it is that he will not manifest himself 
to the world. He simply says, u He that loveth 
me not keepeth not my sayings." 

This is the law, and this is the philosophy of 
its working. The question of salvation or perdi- 
tion is reduced ultimately to a matter of taste. 
And the taste determines the action, towards God 
or away from him — for God or against him forever. 
What are your tastes and affinities ? God is just, 
and true, and good. The salvation is universal, 
in so far, that it is free to all — offered to all 
who will. But how can it take effect against any 
man's will, however universal it may be? The 
only thing that ever conditions it to any one is 



88 THE LAW OF THE 

his own actual and cordial acceptance of it. And 
beyond that absolute universality of the offer, shall 
any man dare demand that God shall put him un- 
der any compulsion to love him? This is impos- 
sible, inconceivable! Love can not be so com- 
pelled! God himself can not so violate all the 
law of moral being, as to make a man's love to 
him to be contrary to the man's own choice, and 
in utter violence to his free action. 

No! And can a man make his perverse and 
corrupt tastes a plea for his alienation from all 
that is good ? Is a man's taste for fraud, or theft, 
or murder, a plea in his defence? No, but rather 
an aggravation of it. Call it moral insanity, or 
what you will, we can conceive no greater free- 
dom among men, than that one does as he pleases, 
and follows out his own tastes and appetites. 

But whosoever will, let him take; nothing can 
be freer than this. If any man thirst, here is the 
living water, gushing up freely and fully from the 
open fountain. And no man who comes hither, 
wishing to find Christ, but will find Christ waiting 
to receive him into favor. To one who knocks for 
admittance at Christ's gate, there is nothing in 
the universe to debar him. The gate stands wide 
open, night and day, for such to enter freely. And 
when any such applicant doubts whether he will 
be accepted, let him understand that this is to 
doubt all Christ's word of Gospel invitation and 
provision. And that already he is accepted in the 
beloved. And let him know that heaven is for 
none other than such. 



DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 89 

And there as here, the children will find the 
Father's house; and just because they are chil- 
dren, they shall come, one by one, tripping home 
at evening, and shall gather round the supper- 
table, and he will preside at the feast, and he will 
manifest himself in all his loving attributes to all 
those who love him, and who heed and cherish his 
word. 

And all that manifestation shall be infinitely 
natural, genial, cordial. And as he has often 
come in and supped with us here, Father and Son 
together, along with the children, so there, we 
shall enter in and sup with him at the great ban- 
quet of the redeemed. And it will be home, and 
happiness and lieaven. 







VI. 

THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

c But one thing is needful.' ' — Luke x. 42 "One thing 

thou lackest." — Mark x. 21 "One thing I know."— John 

ix. 25 "One thing have I desired of the Lord." — Psalm 

xxvii. 4. "But this one thing I do." — Phil. iii. 13. 

The Bible is, in a certain sense, a book of one 
idea. There is one doctrine taught, towards which 
all its passages converge. There is one interest 
set forth, as the essence of this divine communica- 
tion to men. One duty is enjoined, in which all 
possible duty concentrates. As a record of his- 
tory, what shall be stated as the sum of it all? 
"This is the record — -that God hath given to us 
eternal life, and this life is in his Son." As a mes- 
sage from God to us, what is the substance of it 
all ? This is the message — " Peace on earth, good- 
will toward men." As a law of living, what is the 
purport of it all? This is the law — "Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy 
neighbor as thyself." And as a definition of duty, 
what is it in the language of Jesus Christ him- 
self? "This is the work of God, that ye believe 
on him whom he hath sent." And where this Gos- 
pel is truly embraced, it makes the man, in a strik- 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." ■ 91 

ing sense, a man of one idea. His eye is single, 
his aim is simple, his life is expressed in one word 
— u To me, to live is Christ!" and so, also, death 
with such an one has but one result — gain ! 

I find in the Scriptures five passages, in which a 
certain "one thing" is spoken of, and these pas- 
sages are comprehensive of all true religion. 

The first passage is this of our Lord to Martha, 
Luke x. 42: "One thing (he says) is needful!" It 
is personal religion — the positive and absolute need 
of all. The great Creator of all things stands be- 
fore a poor creature, who is full of various ne- 
cessities, the very impersonation, as Martha was, 
of divers cares and worriments of life. And, as 
if there were only one thing, out of all that crowd 
of her anxieties which was really worthy her so- 
licitude, he says : " Martha, Martha, thou art care- 
ful and troubled about many things ; but one thing 
is needful ! " Not as if all attention to domestic 
matters were to be rebuked. No ! Not as if the 
cares of the household were not every way proper 
and commendable. Nor as if Martha were to be 
blamed for the beautiful example which she set 
of caring so much to make her house and board 
agreeable to the Master. Oh, no ! But that Mary 
also is well situated at the feet of Jesus — that 
she is not to be rebuked for seeming to subordi- 
nate every thing earthly to the higher spiritual 
concern — and that, as a principle, which must for- 
ever decide between the Marys and the Marthas, 
there is just one thing needful; and that to this 
thing every thing ought to be referred. It is just 



92 ' THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

the foundation which is needful to the building. 
It is the main-spring which is needful to the 
watch. It is the light which is needful to the 
eye. Nay, it is the soul which is needful to the 
body. 

And true religion, whether you define it as the 
love of God or the faith of Christ, is just the helm 
that is needed to steer the vessel on this great and 
tumultuous ocean — the pole-star in our sky which 
is needed to guide our earthly course. And as 
between Martha and Mary here, it is not at all a 
question between merely secular and merely spir- 
itual occupation, but only a question between the 
different modes of serving Christ in different cir- 
cumstances. For Martha is a lover of Christ, and 
this is the secret of her care to set his table well. 
But Martha's duty is not Mary's, nor is Martha 
responsible for Mary's service, nor is Martha to be 
the censor of Mary's conduct, if the Master ap- 
proves. Much less is Martha to fret so over her 
housekeeping cares, as to chide the Master him- 
self for not thrusting Mary from his feet, that she 
may give her help in her undue worriment. Nay, 
the subject has only one solution; true religion 
everywhere — in the kitchen, in the parlor, or in 
the sanctuary. 

But the record is — "Mary also sat at Jesus' 
feet." Not exclusively this; not shunning to bear 
her part in the service also, but mingling the work- 
ing and the waiting in such way as draws com- 
mendation from the Master. 

Work and worship are sisters ; twin sisters, shall 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 93 

I say? Not work without worship! That is sla- 
very. Not worship without work. That is fanati- 
cism and heresy. Sitting at Jesus' feet and hear- 
ing his word, we get the key and clew to all holy 
living. 

Some disparage doctrine, will have nothing but 
work, will have little to do with a creed, will shun 
any committal to definite symbols of faith; as 
though doctrine were not at the very bottom of 
duty, as though a man's belief, positive and well 
defined, must not control his practice; as though 
any one's living could mean any thing, or be of 
any account at all, except as founded upon his con- 
victions. Mary also sat at Jesus' feet and heard 
his word, taking precious lessons of Christian doc- 
trine in order to Christian duty; learning just 
there, at his feet, to do such eminent service, as to 
wash those sacred feet with her tears, and to wipe 
them with the hairs of her head; and preparing 
just thsre to do that splendid office-work of anoint- 
ing, which he was pleased to account as done 
against the day of his burial. And thus her work 
had all its glowing motive and glorious crown, as 
being Christian work, done on the basis of Chris- 
tian doctrine, learned at Jesus' feet. And when 
the sisters sent for Jesus to save their sick brother, 
this is the record; not — It was that Martha who 
spread his table; but, "It was that Mary who 
anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his 
feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was 
sick." 

And so the choice of this good part is the choice 



94 THE FIVE ''ONE THINGS." 

of a key to unlock all the chambers of the glorious 
golden palace of God! The habitual learning from 
Jesus, out of his word and out of his daily prov- 
idence, i& perhaps less showy, less bustling, less 
demonstrative; but it is not, on this account, de- 
serving of the reflection which may be cast upon 
it from Martha's point of view. In truth this is 
the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he 
hath sent. "This is life eternal, to know thee, the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
sent." 

The busy workers who can go out among the 
degraded and destitute, and day and night can 
seek them for Christ, may sometimes complain 
of those whose work is more retiring and less 
public, as if they were doing nothing in their 
quiet home circle, or in the unpretending walks of 
the neighborhood. Some are always demanding 
that all shall work in their way, after their pat- 
tern ; and nothing counts with them, in thg whole 
varied round of service, if it be not out-of-doors 
work, society work, and public demonstration. 
Some who are always on their feet in the Chris- 
tian service are not found sufficiently at the feet 
of Jesus. This religion must sway all our belief, 
must enter into all our relations, and must per- 
vade all our affairs. And in order to this, it re- 
quires to be nourished on all sides, and to be care- 
fully cultivated at the feet of Jesus himself — to 
learn of him. Else, this living of ours, amidst toil 
and trial, takes in too much of the merely secular 
element, and we lose the calm and peace which 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 95 

our blessed Christianity so well affords. " One 
thing is needful" especially in the worry of modern 
living; to hallow life's cares, and lighten its loads, 
and soothe its sorrows, and chasten its tempers, and 
sweeten its endearments. Your cares and troubles 
are sent to bring you to his feet. Blessed are the 
Marthas who bring their cares, and even their com- 
plaints to Jesus. He will show them his grace, 
most resplendent upon the dark background of 
every sorrow. He w 7 ill show them how in every 
trouble the eternal stars w r ill shine out as soon 
as it is dark enough; and how every cloud that 
spreads above, and veileth love, itself is love! He 
will expound to them the elaborate system of his 
providence, by which, as in the music-box, every 
one of the sharp points that are scattered, at seem- 
ing random, on the cylinder of daily life, is set 
so as to strike an answering chord, just where it 
shall discourse the most harmonious and exquisite 
melody. 

Again, secondly, we find the same "one thing" 
set forth by the Master — true religion. The chief 
essential lack of the best natural men. "One thing 
thou lackest" Mark x. 21. It is the case in which 
our Lord confronts the claims of a most exemplary 
and lovely young man, who had wealth and social 
position, and even a religious inclination, to make 
him most attractive and truly lovely. Jesus show T s 
him wherein all his vaunted righteousness was de- 
fective and unable to stand the test. 

You see the picture as it is drawn by the inspired 
evangelist. It is the young ruler accosting the 



96 THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

Master in most respectful terms; nay, running and 
kneeling to Him, and anxiously inquiring of Him 
— "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" It is 
the picture of many a young man — respectful to 
religion indeed, but not religious nor ready to be- 
come such. It is the great chief question of our 
race, in contact with the means of grace, and un- 
der the pressure of divine truth. And the point 
of the Master s teaching and warning is this : the 
most direct, the most personal, the mo'st universal 
— "One thing thou lackest." 

Who does not know that the lack of one thing, 
in most special circumstances, may be the lack of 
every thing? The wedding garment at the feast, 
the robe of Christ's righteousness at the judgment, 
the passport at the gate of heaven. 

This is every thing. It is so in daily life. If a 
man lacks principle, you say this is that essential 
lack which spoils his best deeds, vitiates all his 
living, makes him utterly unreliable. If he be 
untrue, if he lack truth in speech or conduct, this 
is fatal before God and man. And this is just pre- 
cisely that one thing — the lack of a true and proper 
Christian principle in all one's actions, which the 
judgment day shall expose and denounce with 
fearful severity. Oh how many guises shall be 
torn off in that day, how many sophistries ex- 
posed, how much fair-seeming will be made dis- 
gusting ! How many a young man, of whom this 
one in the Scripture is the type, will be able indeed 
to say — "AH these commandments have I kept 
from my youth up," they were the inculcation of 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 97 

my infancy, the doctrine of parental piety, dis- 
tilled upon me as rain upon the tender grass ; and 
from the first to the tenth command, I have kept 
them all from my youth. Who shall say now, 
that I lack any thing ? The Judge of all will say 
— "Yet lackest thou one thing;" and this is the 
new heart, this is the Christian principle, this is 
the divine life in the soul. Only one thing indeed! 
But as when the light is lacking to the landscape 
the whole scenery of fields and flowers is wrapped 
in darkness, and has the pall of midnight spread 
over all its beauty, so thou lackest the Sun of 
Eighteousness to break out upon your decorous 
and decent living — to make it beam forth as the 
reflection of Jesus' image, and glow and glisten in 
all the hues and tints of the rainbow that is round 
about the throne ! 

And if any man questions his lack in the pres- 
ence of the Master, let him only ask, Who is to 
pronounce upon the fact at the last day? By 
what standard is his life to be measured? Whose 
requirement is he to meet? Whose bar is he to 
confront? And if yet he seem to himself to be 
faultless, or claim to be without any essential de- 
fect, let him only submit himself to this true test 
of all morality — let him hear the ten commands 
expounded and applied at the lips of the great 
Lawgiver himself. He may repeat them all and 
respond to them all, but put to the first practical 
test he breaks down at the very first command- 
ment. Has he been keeping the cold precepts of 
the Decalogue, and yet turned away from the liv- 
7 



98 THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

ing impersonation of them all in the man Christ 
Jesus himself? Has he had love for his neighbor, 
for his friend, for his household — love for the stran- 
ger even, and only no love at all for the most 
lovely object in the universe? Weighed in this 
balance of heaven itself, the verdict is — " Yet lack- 
est thou one tiling." 

Ah ! you do not know, as yet, the preface to the 
commandments. You have not read that Gospel, 
that goes before the Law, that wondrous announce- 
ment of deliverance from the house of bondage, by 
him who says to you: "I am the Lord thy God, 
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt." 
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." I 
must have all your love. 

Many wonder how it could be said here, of this 
very young man, with all his fatal mistake, that 
Jesus, looking upon him, loved him. But this is 
the Gospel itself, which we are all so slow to ap- 
preciate ; the tidings of God's love to us in Jesus 
Christ, that comes in every Gospel message, and 
comes in every benediction of the sanctuary — "The 
love of God be with you." This is the precious, 
gracious truth, that the young ruler had not taken 
into his soul, the love of God to men, and that God 
sends his love to sinners in Christ Jesus, as calling 
for a responsive and absorbing love to him. And 
so the young man had failed to understand the 
Decalogue, and could not receive or obey it in 
truth, because he understood it as a task, because 
he had not understood the preface to it, that bade 
him, first of all, count himself a redeemed man, 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS. 99 

and wake up to the high obligation of giving the 
heart to him who gave himself for his salvation. 

And still more. Your idolatry of the ivorld may 
be the secret poison at the vitals of all your moral- 
ity. Then admit this test of Jesus — begin at the 
very first commandment. Who, or what is your 
God? What if he bid you to sell what you have 
and give to the poor, to empty the chaff from his 
vessel so as to get it filled from his stor.e? Do 
you love most your gold or your God, your treas- 
ure or the well-being of your fellow-men, your 
large possessions which the Master allows you or 
the Master himself, your riches or the heritage of 
heaven? Is it God or mammon that you serve 
and obey? Oh, if you lack this one thing, under- 
neath all these fair appearances you lack the new 
nature, the renewed temper, the celestial taste, the 
divine affinity, the relish for heaven itself! And 
so you lack every thing. 

But there is, thirdly, another point of view, in 
which this one thing is presented to us in the Scrip- 
ture. It is the one thing needful obtained, or per- 
sonal religion in the experience. " One thing I 
know, that whereas I was blind, now I see,' 1 John 
ix. 25. 

The case is that of the poor man upon whose 
dead eyeball no sweet light of sun or stars had 
ever shone from the beginning; the very picture 
of native disability. And to him Jesus came — 
the wonder-worker, the Healer, the Saviour. And 
upon all that darkness there burst forth the glori- 
ous light of day, and his eyes were gladdened by 



100 THE FIVE "ONE THINGS," 

a sight of the personal Eedeemer, who is the Light 
of the World, and the Light of Life. And now, 
when men were puzzled at the change, when 
friends crowded around the cured man to inquire 
into the wondrous phenomena, when they said it 
was so impossible, so incredible, that a man should 
by a word open the eyes of one born blind, he 
answers to it all, out of his own experience, " One 
thing I know, that whereas I was blind now I see." 
It is the amazing contrast of what he is with 
what he was, which certifies him of the change. 
His long cherished misconceptions of the truth are 
gone. What he was so naturally blind to, what 
he never could see though it was often described 
to him, what he could never understand though 
so often explained to him, now he sees it all. It 
comes flashing into his inmost soul with all its in- 
imitable beauty — God's love to men in the Gospel 
and the glorious salvation by Jesus Christ, in all 
its glorious colors. What wonder that only one 
object now fills his eye, only one truth is to him 
the sum of all knowledge; and far beyond all 
his common understanding of truths in nature or 
truths in history, far beyond his knowledge of 
common facts attested by observation and expe- 
rience, is the absolute certainty which he has of 
this one thing ! It is a thing which has gone down 
to the depths of his soul, and has struck its roots 
deeply into the very fibres and tissues of his be- 
ing. It is matter of living consciousness. What- 
ever Pharisees may profess to know to the con- 
trary, and vaunting Scribes or his own parents 



THE FIVE "ONE .THINGS." 101 

may assert, all this does not disturb him at all 
in this one thing, which he certainly and undeni- 
ably knows for himself. Nay, whatever he may 
not know, as yet, about this one thing, he knows 
the thing itself, knows the fact, that the change 
has passed upon his mental and moral being; that 
it is now the gladdest of all cures which a man 
could experience, to have his dead eyeball quick- 
ened, and a universe of beauty let in, with the 
flood of day, upon his joyous sense. As if God 
had just now flung out all these worlds for him, 
and decked the fields with all their flowers, and 
the faces of friends with all their nameless charms, 
and discovered Jesus to him, as his best friend, 
to fill his soul w r ith oceans of happiness. Let the 
vain world, let arrogant reason, let the devil him- 
self, with all his cunning, seek to throw skeptic 
suspicions upon the sources of this untold pleasure, 
and to dry up the fountains of this joy, and to poi- 
son the springs of this new-born hope. They must 
first destroy the very constitution of the soul, must 
vitiate all the evidence of* experience, must make 
a man to disbelieve — I will not say his senses of 
sight, and hearing and feeling, for they may de- 
ceive him — but to disbelieve his own self. 

Tell me that this domain of religious experience 
is not the proper sphere of knowledge. I tell you 
this is the very field of positive knowledge. To 
all the vagaries of a blind philosophy and a deaf 
science, claiming to know more than the Scrip- 
ture or more than God, the Christian man still 
answers boldly, " One thing I know, that whereas 



102 THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

I was blind, now I see." He witnesses of this 
Eedeemer's work upon himself, of this one thing 
as the great requisite, and witnesses of its reality 
in his own case. He says, "one thing to me was 
needful, and that was my sight; one thing indeed 
I lacked, and that was the cure ! But now, one 
thing I know, that the blessed change has been 
wrought upon me which has altered all my be- 
ing." Oh poor blind sinner, do you claim that 
you see ? that you apprehend truth and appreciate 
it in its real bearings, and yet like Pilate in the 
presence of the King of Truth and of the Person of 
Truth itself, are vainly querying, u What is truth?" 
I tell you this one thing must yet become a matter 
of your inward and personal experience, before you 
can speak or act advisedly ! Till this change shall 
take place upon you you are at best even here in 
the sanctuary only a blind Nicodemus, groping 
about by night, and in the presence of the Mas- 
ter, asking, u How can these things be?" 

And, fourthly, another passage presents still an- 
other and further aspect of this one thing. It is 
true religion in the heart as the spring of true 
devotion. It is the Psalmist's fervent aspiration, 
in which he seems to have but one great wish — 
one hearty desire — that absorbs his whole soul, 
and swallows up all the passions of his being. 
Psalm xxvii. 4: "One thing have I desired of the 
Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in 
the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to 
behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in 
his temple." 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 103 

Here it is, that the one principle works within, 
in one characteristic style of impulse and emotion. 
This is its natural development in worship. The 
Christian is a man of prayer and praise. His 
chosen occupation is worship, his chosen home is 
the sanctuary, his favorite study is the character 
and ways of God. The personal object in all the 
universe that most attracts him is the Lord Jesus, 
and clustering around the house of God are his 
dearest, fondest home delights. Here are his com- 
panions and friends, here he chooses his residence 
for a permanency ; and this one taste is the expres- 
sion of all the highest, strongest affinities of his 
being. 

To know a man's character, ask only what de- 
lights him most. What places does he chiefly fre- 
quent? What circle of friendship does he seek, 
what is his chosen study and occupation, what 
are his leanings and likings, and what are his 
longings day by day, culminating at the top and 
crown of the week ? The word of God, the house 
of God, the worship of God, the people of God, 
the service of God, the favor of God, and God him- 
self — these express, for a true Christian, his whole 
circle of interests. 

"Thou art the sea of love, 

Where all my pleasures roll; 
The circle where my passions move, 
And centre of my soul." 

The one thing needful is found. The one thing 
lacking is supplied. The one thing that he knows 
beyond all dispute is this new perception he has 



104 THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

of the divine beauty, and this new sense and eye- 
sight of all that is so transcendently lovely in the 
character and work and ways of God himself. And 
he can not keep it secret. He must give it pub- 
lic expression, in the public confession of Christ 
and Christianity. And you had as well expect a 
lighted lamp to keep the light a secret, or the rose 
to hold back its fragrance, as expect a Christian 
not to confess Christ, And the one engrossing 
desire that expresses the highest longings of his 
nature is this — a personal communion with God; 
and if anywhere on earth a table is spread for 
this he will find it. It is this heaving and swell- 
ing of his bosom after fellowship with the Most 
High which does, in effect, make every place to 
him a place of worship, and every act an act of 
worship, and sets the sanctuary far above all earth- 
ly resorts, and establishes the man in a habitual 
devoutness, until his face shall seem to shine and 
glow in the radiance of his interviews with God. 
Such an one illustrates the true religion, in all 
his tastes and fellowships. And when, on the Sab- 
bath, or during the week, he comes up to the courts 
of God, you can see that it is from no constraint, 
but out of a hearty choice ; that it is his home, that 
it is more attractive to him even than his own 
hearth-stone, and the dear circle of his household, 
because this is the dwelling-place of God, his heav- 
enly Father, and the chosen resting-place of the 
soul. And such a prevalent temper is the guar- 
antee of all good desires, and the pledge of all holy 
and happy experience. 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 105 

But there is still another and crowning aspect, 
in which this one thing is presented. It is per- 
sonal religion essential in the life, or Christian ac- 
tivity exemplified. 

"This one thing I do, 11 Philippians iii. 13. Paul 
is the man who says it — that man of gigantic en- 
terprises and of vast and varied exploits, whom 
you see at Jerusalem, at Athens, at Corinth, at 
Ephesus, at Eome, confronting all oppositions, re- 
futing all sophistries, establishing and supervising 
all the churches. Yet it is only one thing he does ; 
as the sun does only one thing — that he shines 
and shines for all, and comprehends all within his 
glowing circuit, and sheds his radiance upon all 
creatures and objects under the broad heavens. 

This is the sublime unity of the Christian living, 
that in effect it has but one aim, knows but one 
object, moves in but one orbit, and tends always 
towards one grand result. This is no narrowness 
of thought and feeling, but only a world-wide 
comprehension of all truth and duty. If there 
seem to be various forces at work in his life, there 
is this resultant of them all to be found. If there 
be disturbances at times in his motions, there is 
yet a balance even of those disturbances, like that 
balancing of perturbations which holds the planets 
in their track and wheels them along in their 
spheres. This makes a man consistent and prin- 
cipled — that he has no two Gods to serve, no two 
courses to pursue, no two ends to fulfil, no tivo des- 
tinies to attain. This steady, uniform aim and ob- 
ject of life develops into all the manifold Christian 



106 THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

enterprises of church work and Christian benefi- 
cence. This is the beautiful singleness of eye 
which makes the whole body fall of light, where 
there is this fixed focus of his vision, and no double 
sight. This is the simplicity and transparency of 
his conduct — a man of one huge, steady, life-long 
undertaking, of one grand thought, of one burn- 
ing desire, of one overmastering impulse; like the 
runner of a race, with his eye intent upon the one 
goal, straining every nerve and bending every en- 
ergy for the achievement; like the great racer 
who, even if he wound himself on the track, will 
struggle bravely through. This is the secret of 
all efficiency, of all fidelity, of all success. 

But observe here, this one thing that the Chris- 
tian does is to progress in the divine life. It is to 
advance in Christian attainment. It is no sitting 
at ease, as though the getting of this religion were 
like getting a jewel to wear, instead of an imple- 
ment to use or a life to live. There must be the 
natural and necessary development of that germ 
which is implanted in the new birth, that grows 
to the stature of a matured and ripened manhood. 
And yet how few seem to have discovered that 
this religion, instead of being a thing for the Sab- 
bath merely, or for a mere ritualistic service, is a 
thing to pervade the whole being, and to enter 
into every thought and feeling and action. It 
consists not so much in doing certain religious and 
spiritual things, as in doing all things upon a re- 
ligious and spiritual principle. This is, indeed, just 
the difference between a mere empty formalism 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 107 

and a true Christian living. And the atmosphere 
of such a piety is no such dusky twilight as 
makes men doubtful whether the sun is up, but 
you know that the Sun of Righteousness has risen 
on the world of such a man, from beholding every 
object lighted up by its effulgence and glowing in 
^its beams. And it is not with such an apologizing 
for deviations from the course — for excesses or in- 
dulgences; there is no narrowing and diminishing 
of the divine requirement by worldly interpreta- 
tion, no excuse for want of progress in religion. 
No ! but rather a whole-souled effort and determi- 
nation to progress to the highest possible attain- 
ment. It is no self-satisfied and self-righteous liv- 
ing, as though between the man arid God there 
was no great distance to be traversed, in reaching 
the celestial perfection; but it is an ever onward 
" pressing toward the mark for the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus," an ever in- 
creasing wrestle with all forms and powers of evil 
in the world. This is the lack of the modern piety, 
my hearers, that it makes no such strenuous, per- 
sistent, daily efforts at advance; that it does not 
pursue this divine perfection as men run and strug- 
gle for a prize. 

And yet is not this perfectness essential to the 
heavenly estate ? And are you even at any near 
approach to that unspotted holiness in which you 
are hoping to appear before God? I assure you, 
my brethren, there can be nothing miraculous in 
the transformation of any soul to fit it for glory, 
any more than to fit it for woe. It is the one 



108 THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 

thing throughout — the one thing that is essen- 
tially needful to every man, and the one thing 
that is essentially lacking with every unrenewed 
man, and the one thing that the converted man 
has found out,, like a new eyesight to the dead 
eyeball, and the one thing that shapes his daily 
longings for the worship and service of God. This 
is still the one thing which unifies the life, and 
which gives definiteness to the course, and bal- 
ance to the tendencies, and singleness to the aim, 
and harmony to the powers and passions; which 
makes heaven a necessity for him. One thing 
is certain, heaven can be the home of those only 
who long after it and travel towards it That prize 
can be reached by no lottery, but only by those 
who run here the race whose terminus is crowned 
with this bright reward. 

We have not reached the goal, my brethren. 
Why sit down as though all our work of heart- 
culture were finished, when it is scarce begun? 
Where is the daily self-inspection such as a com- 
mon prudence would dictate in the midst of dan- 
gers, such as the smallest degree of interest would 
call for to secure the great result ? And are you 
getting no daily inspirations from the upper world 
for which you profess to hope ? Does not the fore- 
sight of that eternity animate you in daily duty ? 
Is not the crown of glory such a shining reality, 
and such a splendid reward, as to call forth all the 
longings of your soul ? What are you living for, 
if not for that ? What one thing are you doing, if 
not reaching forth for that? And amidst all the 



THE FIVE "ONE THINGS." 109 

excitements of the race, the perils of defeat, the 
glories of victory, can you possibly help thinking, 
hoAV very soon the race will be run and the eter- 
nal issue decided ? And what can be more certain 
than that, as is the course you are running, so must 
be the goal ? You can not expect to strain all the 
energies of your being along the downward road, 
and find it just at the last moment, by a sudden 
turn, landing you into heaven. The very path 
you daily travel projects into eternity; and as, in 
some of the great cities which lie on both sides of 
a river, the very streets the other side the river match 
with these which you are now traversing on this 
side, — and as on one side of the river is your bus- 
iness, so on the other side is your residence and 
rest, — so far away into the ages upon ages, these 
same roads stretch on, and on, and on, forever 
and ever. And this one thing which you do now 
you will do then and eternally. 

And now, my hearers, there remains with each 
one for himself, but one question. It regards this 
one thing ! Are you doing this ? I ask not what 
else you are doing for yourselves, for your families, 
for the world. Are you doing this one thing, and 
doing this in every thing, so that every thing you 
do may resolve itself into this — all words of defin- 
ition into one word — "For me to live is Christ." 
" Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving 
the Lord." 



VII. 

"TO THE UTTERMOST." 

" Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that 
come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession 
for them." — Heb. vii. 25. 

When the Son of God was born a babe at Beth- 
lehem, what should be his name? What should 
Gabriel announce as the charmed word by which 
he should be called — the title by which he should 
be most familiarly and fondly known among the 
crowds of sinners, to the end of time? Not Crea- 
tor, not Upholder of the Universe, not Judge of 
the World, but — Jesus, Saviour! The name that 
is above every name. 

Tell me not of other ability that he has to gar- 
nish the heavens, and lay the foundations of the 
earth, and to raise the dead and judge men and 
angels; but tell me has he ability to save — at all 
times, in all extremities, and all classes of men? 
Can he save a chief sinner, can he save you and me, 
can he save me now, as I am ? Is he so great a 
Saviour that he can not fail us, if we trust in him ? 

And how is this ability proven ? On what grounds 
may it be alleged without contradiction? 

He is sometimes set forth as able to save on the 
ground of his proper Godhead. "Look unto me, 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." Ill 

and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am 
God and there is none else!" Here in the text, 
however, the apostle infers this saving ability from 
his priestly character and office-work, as so supe- 
rior to that of the sons of Aaron. 

He is no half-way Saviour, because he has an 
unchangeable priesthood, that does not descend to 
some successor by reason of death. He ever liveth 
to carry on what he has begun and to consummate 
it, in every case, as a complete and eternal salva- 
tion. He ever liveth to intercede, to make our 
cause his own. 

The undying intercession of Christ is here pre- 
sented as the basis of his supreme ability to save. 
If any one would possibly think of that interces- 
sion as if it were the plea of the Divine Son with 
the Father, to overcome his enmity and to per- 
suade his reluctance, let him hear the Scriptures — 
"God so loved the world that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

The argument here is brief and conclusive. As 
the shepherd has his sheep, who are objects of his 
special care and keeping; as the attorney has his 
clients, for whom he pleads at law as for none 
others; as the representative has his constituency, 
for whom he stands and with whose interests he is 
charged to carry them through; so Jesus Christ, 
the advocate with the Father, undertakes the case 
of all those who come unto God through him. 

Of what avail were the temple, altar and priest 
of the old economy, in all their glory, if no man 



112 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

had come forward with his lamb of sacrifice ? The 
priest ministered for sinners who needed expiation, 
and who sought the priestly services, appointed by 
God in such case; who came bringing their lamb 
or bullock for the altar with confession of sin, and 
for all such those Aaronic high-priests acted and 
were able to save, just so far as that ritual function 
could suffice. Jesus, the ever-living High-priest, 
who is also the Lamb of God, is able to save all 
who come unto God by him. 

And beyond all that those ritual priests could 
ever do, he is able to save most completely and 
eternally through and through. 

Whoever seeks his priestly ministrations, his sac- 
rifice and his intercessions, finds him able to save 
unto the uttermost. And if any are not saved, it 
is only because they have disdained his office-work, 
have not committed their souls to his hands, have 
not sought his expiation, have not applied for 
his merits, have not besought him to undertake 
for them, as the true and living Intercessor and 
Saviour. 

The idea of the text is, that Jesus is no half-way 
Saviour ; the exact language is, that he is able to 
save unto completion or consummation. 

And this is in distinction from those Levitical 
priests of the ancient ritual, whose function was 
external and typical. They could, in a sense, save 
only half-way; while they were officiating, too, 
they died; they could bring nothing to comple- 
tion; they only led to the gate-way of salvation, 
and here they stood, in holy vestments, confessing 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 113 

their inability to deliver the soul from death, and 
pointing forward to the great High-priest that was 
to come. 

Let us consider in the first place: Jesus is able 
to save to the uttermost of sin ! 

There were certain crimes under the Mosaic law 
for which no expiation could be made — so flagrant, 
so wilful, so capital, that they were expressly de- 
barred from the priestly mediation. But no such 
sin is set down under the Gospel, as transcend- 
ing the power of Christ's blood to wash it away. 
"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." 
For wilful murder and blasphemy the priestly office, 
under the Mosaic dispensation, could not atone; 
but even the murder of Jesus himself can be ex- 
piated by the very blood those murderers shed, 
and even blasphemy against the Son of Man is a 
crime expressly marked as within the scope of 
forgiveness under the Gospel. The murder of a 
fellow-creature, whose blood, like Abel's, is crying 
from the earth and interceding with God for ven- 
geance, can be pardoned by the louder outcry of 
the blood of Jesus, interceding for the criminal's 
salvation. 

See Saul, with a Satanic malice, compelling fee- 
ble, frightened Christian men and women to blas- 
pheme; but instead of lightning flashes of wrath 
overwhelming him, there come the lightning gleams 
of mercy ! Hear him testify — u It is a faithful say- 
ing and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners, of whom / am 

chief:' 

8 



114 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

And, of all sins that have ever been named by 
God or man, there is only one that is counted unpar- 
donable, and that seems rather the combination and 
concentration of all in one — blasphemy against the 
Holy Ghost 

We know not the nature of it, only that it 
implies a settled malignity and despite that breaks 
out against the sweet Spirit of grace — against the 
only Power that can reach and renovate the soul. 
It is a malignity that would grieve the Spirit and 
quench the Spirit and resist the Spirit, so as madly 
to spurn all his gentle and gracious and saving 
offices. And it would seem to be only a consum- 
mation of all those resistances and oppositions to 
which an incorrigible soul may be given over, to 
dash the cup of life from its very lips and to 
trample under foot the son of God, doing despite 
unto the spirit of grace. 

And then beyond the official ability there is also 
an effective ability here provided, which carries on 
the salvation through and through to the rooting 
out of the most stubborn and desperate sin. 

Sinful habits will seem to defy the divine power 
in the heart and life ; besetting sins long cherished 
will still get the mastery. No wonder that the 
Christian cries out at times — "Oh, wretched man 
that I am, who shall deliver me?" Can all such 
evil tempers and mad passions be eradicated? Can 
this legion of devils be exorcised? All of them. 
And the man who had wandered among the tombs, 
raving and gashing himself — can he be so thorough- 
ly made a new creature as to be found sitting at the 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 115 

feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind ? Yes. 
It has been done ! It can be done again ! This is 
the great salvation — a process going on within lis, 
saving us to-day from the sins of yesterday, and 
saving us, through and through, to the end. 

He saves to the uttermost The poor besotted 
creature who has been a beastly slave to his cups, 
even he is lifted up by Jesus from this degrada- 
tion, and raised to the dignity of a man again. 
The profane swearer, whose every sentence was 
intensified by an oath, is brought to loathe the 
fiendish habit that so associates a man, prema- 
turely, with the world of curses and the abode of 
the lost. The gambler and the Sabbath-breaker, 
who had become so addicted to their cherished 
vices as to have made them a second nature, are 
led to put them off as their shame, and to dread 
them as their ruin. And the grovelling, debased 
idolater of mammon, who has sold himself to cov- 
etousness and greed, even he is raised up out of 
the dust of his idolatries and has his heart opened 
to the obedience of Christ. 

There can be no complete salvation which does 
not complete this deliverance from sin — from all 
sinful tastes, impulses, habits and principles — how- 
ever inbred and however stubborn to the last. He 
will present us faultless! It seems impossible I 
know! But it is not impossible to divine grace. 

But, secondly, Jesus is able to save, to the utter- 
most of mental infirmity. 

It is the glory of the Gospel plan that it reaches 
the divine arm down to the lowest depth of hu- 



116 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

mankind. The poor child of ignorance can not 
say, " This is too high for me, I am no scholar." 
Jesus comes with his precious, glorious Gospel, and 
it is found to be for babes. Only the boasted wise 
and prudent can not understand it. The very sim- 
plicity of its teachings and of its terms hides it 
from such. The more they philosophize and spec- 
ulate and apply the logic of the schools, the more 
they overlay the gems with rubbish and go blind 
in their own light. But the children see it while 
the parents hesitate and doubt. 

It was so at Jerusalem. The boys and girls, 
such as gather at our Sabbath-schools, came rush- 
ing out of the Temple and greeted him with hosan- 
nas, while the proud Pharisees and Scribes rebuked 
them as disturbers of the peace. They called it 
puerile, but Jesus understood it and accepted it 
as an ovation to him, next to the song of the 
angels. 

And then, how the Sabbath-school classes sit 
at his feet, and sing their sweet anthems to his 
praise, and come thronging in his footsteps and 
crowding at his table, while so many adults scorn 
to be learners and so never find out that he is Je- 
sus. Oh! when shall our Jerusalem be full of boys 
and girls playing in the streets thereof! When 
the time shall come that Jesus shall be confessed 
and followed by the children with their hosannas, 
then shall be the time of Christ's triumphal entry 
into the church and the world. 

And further, thirdly. He is able to save to the 
uttermost of present deficiency and disability. 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 117 

Thousands under the Gospel have not under- 
stood this. Here it is, precisely, that we stand to- 
day, exhorting men to believe and be saved. This 
is just the credence and confidence he asks, that 
he can save you to-day — this moment — as you 
are — where you are — sinner though you are — able 
to save the most unable ! 

You believe that he is able to save some certain 
ones, who have fulfilled certain conditions ; all 
who come unto God, by him, aright — who come 
penitent, broken-hearted, believing — but not you, 
who are none of these, and who have no right 
affections whatever, and therefore you are waiting 
till you can get in a condition to be saved by him. 
If you are in a condition to desire his salvation, 
that is the very condition in which he loves to 
save. 

You ask me if he can save you without any 
further preliminaries or preparations ? Yes ! But 
you say; "Where is the new heart to come from?" 
That he will give. "Where is the faith to come 
from ? " That he gives. You demand then to 
inow, if you may from this moment rest upon 
him your whole salvation? Yes; it is just this. 
Must you, then, first of all — now — this hour — put 
your whole case into the hands of this Intercessor, 
call him your Saviour, and count all the benefits 
of his finished work on earth and his eternal work 
in heaven yours? Yes. What warrant has any 
one to go to any other being in the universe for 
any part of the salvation? What warrant has any 
sinner to delay, one moment, his acceptance of Je- 



118 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

bus as his Saviour, when the atoning work is all 
done, and the Gospel is proclaimed to all with all 
the glad tidings, and the water of life is gushing 
from the fountain freely and for all ? 

You ask me : " Is there then nothing for the ap- 
plicant to do, but to read here the message and to 
say — "Jesus is mine! 1 ' and to live in the blessed, 
grateful confidence of this fact? Nothing to do, 
but this. To whomsoever this Gospel is glad tid- 
ings, to him it is the Gospel. 

When will men understand that Jesus is able to 
save to the uttermost — not half-way, but through 
and through, from beginning to end. The poor 
African tmderstood it in that favorite couplet: 

" I am a poor sinner, and nothing at all, 
But Jesus Christ is my all in all." 

Jesus said, "To the poor the Gospel is preached." 
Of what avail is it that I give a man a draft for 
a thousand pounds, payable to his order, if he will 
not believe it is for him, or for his present use, 
apart from all considerations? He says, "How can 
it be ? This is not for me. I have never earned 
it. There is some mistake. I have no claim upon 
this party, none whatever ; to say nothing of such 
an amount. It may be for some other one of my 
name, or even for me upon some unexpressed con- 
ditions, but surely not for me as a free gift!" and 
he will not even endorse his name upon the back 
of the draft nor apply for the money at the bank. 
So it is with multitudes who disbelieve and to 
whom it is as though Jesus had never died. 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 119 

You have seen men also, who would not allow 
you to help them, whose vicious proclivities made 
all your solicitude vain and your utmost bounty 
useless. 

In this light 1 protest that this salvation is as 
universal as the nature of the case will admit. It 
is proclaimed freely to " Whosoever will" and what 
can be freer than that ? How can there be a sal- 
vation for those who wilt not? The Bible will com- 
pel no man's belief; God will thrust no man into 
heaven against his convictions and against his 
will. No ! No ! ! If you want it, take it — take 
it as a gift — for it is even such an absolute gratu- 
ity that you can have it no otherwise than as a 

gift. 

But, fourthly, Jesus is able to save to the utter- 
most of temptation! 

The strife is sometimes severe. As against the 
Tempter and all his power, and all his hellish arts, 
Jesus is omnipotent to save. No matter how ma- 
levolent be the devices which the arch-adversary 
plies to the ruin of a believer, following him on 
through life, Jesus does not allow him to pluck 
any soul out of his hands. 

The secret of this is found in that wonderful, 
all-powerful intercession with which he bears the 
tempted one upon his bosom at the right hand on 
high. And just because he can not die, the inter- 
cession can not cease, nor can the cause which he 
has undertaken be relinquished; nor can he ever 
be found inactive, or indifferent, or unequal to the 
case. But always pleading and always prevail- 



120 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

ing, as he is, Satan can not snatch any one, of 
the weakest even, from his covenant grasp. 

Look at Peter. There is no doubt of the strug- 
gle there — that heaven and hell were contending 
for that apostle. Jesus tells him plainly: "Satan 
hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as 
wheat, but" — but — U I have prayed for thee, that 
thy faith fail not ! " Ah, there is the secret. 

So with the martyr-maid of Scotland, when the 
persecutors bound her to the stake on the sea- 
beach, where soon the rising tide would come in 
upon her and drown her in the flood. There are 
the frowning soldiers clamoring for her recanta- 
tion ! There are the advancing waves steadily ap- 
proaching! She can overhear the cries of her elder 
sister, tied at a forward stake and just now drown- 
ing in the surge. They only demand of her to 
say: u God save the king!" The mother in the 
crowd cries out to her, " My bonnie Margaret, give 
in and dinna break my heart;" but she sings: "To 
thee, God, I lift my soul." it seems the least 
possible abjuration of her Saviour, but that Saviour 
is precious to her, just because he is so mighty to 
save, and she feels the power of his intercessions 
sustaining her in her fearful straits. Old ocean 
thunders out to her the voice of God in all the 
promises, 

"And 
The tide flows in and, rising to her throat, 
She sang no more, but lifted up her face 
And there was glory over all the sky, 
And there was glory over all the sea — 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 121 

A flood of glory — and the lifted face 
Swam in it, till it bowed beneath the flood 
And Scotland's maiden martyr went to God." 

So with many a weak frame that goes boldly to 
the stake and embraces the fiery cross of martyr- 
dom. There is no principle on which yon can ac- 
count for such heroic fortitude and such unflinch- 
ing faith, except that he who prayed for Peter that 
his faith should not fail, was praying for these also. 

So with the serf of some cruel despot; he is 
commanded to renounce his religion. No! It is 
not that he is free to seek another home, it is not 
that he has friends and helpers, it is not that he 
has money in bank, it is not that he has any earth- 
ly recourse from his infuriated master. No! It is 
only that he has a Master in heaven whom he will 
serve, and from whose love no threats nor tortures 
can separate him. 

And so, the poor tempted one, who is always 
trembling, always doubting — looking to the Spir- 
it's unfinished work within for some ground of 
hope, instead of to Christ's finished work without 
where the Tempter has almost baffled the weak 
beginnings of trust, has almost wrested from the 
worrying mind the first, faint, feeble confidence — 
even here Jesus saves. That germ of grace he has 
implanted, that faint spark of faith, he will fan yet 
to a flame. He does not break the bruised reed 
nor quench the smoking flax, but he brings forth 
judgment unto victory. 

But again, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost 
of loivly condition in life. 



122 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

Look at Lazarus, whose friends can only lay 
him daily at the rich man's gate, if, possibly, he 
may get some of the crumbs that fall from that 
lordly table. Who will save Lazarus? The dogs, 
that lie in lazy groups on the sunny streets of that 
oriental city, will gather round him as if he were 
cast out there to rot in his beggary and sores. 
But within the veil that hides from us the invisible 
world, angels are busy preparing to escort that dy- 
ing beggar to the choicest mansion in Paradise. 
Who would not rather be Lazarus than Dives? 

But who will save that miserable wretch who, 
writhing on his cross at Jerusalem, expiating to 
the law his treason against the state — that insur- 
rectionist who had imbued his hands in blood and 
been brought to the cursed tree along with Jesus 
— who is most forlorn, most helpless, most forsaken 
of friends, most destitute and desolate — to whom 
salvation seems impossible? Jesus is able to save 
— able to save to the uttermost — able to save to- 
day in answer to the faint and faltering cry for 
remembrance at a future coming in his kingdom — 
beyond all expectation, beyond all conception of 
ability and success, he can do it and he will. 

The widow of Nain with her only son upon the 
bier, the sisters of Bethany with their only brother 
in the grave, the ruler Jairus with his only daugh- 
ter dead in her sweet childhood before his eyes — ■ 
he can save, even there. No condition in life where 
he can not save, no case so helpless and hopeless 
as to be beyond the sphere of his salvation, for all 
who come unto God through him. 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 123 

But, finally, Jesus is able to save to the utter- 
most limit of this mortal existence, 

I know that, on all common human calculations, 
you would say, "It can not be so!" that the man 
who has spent his lifetime in rejecting Jesus/ and 
has wasted his energies in opposition to his Gospel, 
can not be accepted at the last moment. I know 
that, while I must speak the truth on this point, 
that truth will be abused. But it is still true ! 

And this is the sublimity and glory of the grace, 
that it can overleap all a man's life-long misdo- 
ings, and make good the Gospel word, even at the 
dying moment. The poor worldling who comes 
up to the brink of eternity full of his avarice and 
folly, and- dreaming yet of gains and gold while 
death is on his clammy brow, even he may hear the 
Gospel word and live. Yes, my hearer, for the 
same Gospel news is published to all, and it does 
not except any who will. We have no other Gos- 
pel for such extreme cases than the same which we 
have for you, in health and buoyancy to-day. The 
dying thief, recent from his robbery and murder, 
and with the words of reviling fresh upon his lips, 
even he, from his cross, may lift his dying prayer 
to Jesus from a heart of true desire, which merges 
into humble faith as he is welcomed the same day 
to Paradise. 

Ah, my hearer, the difficulty with death-bed re- 
pentance is not in Jesus. No! It is not that he 
withholds his salvation at that utmost limit of life 
in a just retaliation, or because it makes him take 
up with the devil's leavings! No! Even this he 



124 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

will do, and welcome the returning prodigal when 
he is starving to death, and seeking refuge from 
amidst the husks and the swine of his profligacy ! 
But the difficulty is with the man himself, that 
having been all his lifetime running down the 
steep, he can not at his mere option turn back, 
any more than Niagara can leap back with all its 
floods up the steep precipice. Having all his days 
blinded his mind and poisoned his thoughts with 
unbelief, he can not now easily dismiss his cavils 
and receive the truth as it is in Jesus. Jesus is 
able as ever, ready as ever! It is not that the 
stubbornness of that long persistency in sin has 
steeled his divine heart to the dying outcries. No ! 
His Gospel comes still the same, a Ho, every one 
that thirsteth, come : weary and heavy-laden ones, 
come ye, without money and without price ; who- 
soever will, let him take." But now the man him- 
self can not credit his ability ; he can not be per- 
suaded that there is any salvation for such an one, 
at such a last moment; his own conscience turns 
against him and cries out, "Too late;" Satan, who 
will fain seize the departing spirit, taunts him with 
the cry, "Too late;" and just because the man has 
never known Christ — never listened to his love — 
he finds himself when he would wish to believe, 
doubting, hesitating, distrusting, denying, despairing ! 
And amidst this self-imposed and cherished dark- 
ness, he sinks into the blackness of darkness, self- 
condemned, heaping reproaches upon his own soul, 
and can't believe that Jesus is able to save so to the 
uttermost! But he is! I tell him that he is, but 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 125 

he can't believe it, yet Jesus must be credited and 
trusted ; for in the trusting spirit is the peace and 
joy of his salvation — the germ of life and blessed- 
ness and glory. 

And thus, also, he is able to save to the utter- 
most in nature's final hour. Where human power 
can go no further — where best friends, with all 
their fondest love, have done their utmost — watch- 
ing, soothing, helping against the advances of the 
last enemy, until now the dear one is given up 
as beyond the reach of kindliest sympathies — then, 
far out at life's uttermost verge, another work is 
going on. The friend that sticketh closer than 
a brother is busy there, and spirit with spirit is 
communing there, and the king's servants are 
hovering around the dying couch there, whisper- 
ing of heaven and ready to be the escort to glory. 
And in the very article of dissolution, when the 
farewells have been all spoken and no name of 
wife or husband or child or parent stirs any sensi- 
bility any longer, and you say it is "death" and 
you feel no pulse any more — even then, the name 
of Jesus will rouse the dying pulses that seem ut- 
terly gone, and there will be a response from the 
very embrace of death to that Name which is above 
every name, as the Conqueror of Death and Hell ! 
Oh ! I have seen it. The last dying smile, which 
no other salutation could command, plays upon 
the pallid features at the mention of that magic 
name. 

That dying senator! The scene was beautiful 
as the beautiful gates that he saw opening into 



126 "TO THE UTTERMOST." 

glory. Looking out, as he did, for the last time 
upon the nation's Capitol, and the sun shining on 
its dome, and then up to the great white throne 
and the starry seats that circle it, and the Father's 
house, where all the good and truly great of the 
race are fast gathering — that was the Christian 
statesman dying. 

And then I have seen the dear little ones die — 
the Christian children — and they saw the same 
beautiful gates as this Christian statesman saw, 
and they cried out as he did — "Beautiful, beauti- 
ful" — as they were borne by the angels to the 
same heavenly home. 

And then, observe that at that uttermost ex- 
tremity, when all earthly helpers must give up and 
can do no further work of relief or of salvation, 
Jesus goes on to save — triumphs there as the only 
Saviour, displays his supreme and matchless abil- 
ity to save through and through. Where death 
and the grave boldly defy any and all others, see 
how he saves to the very completion — saves even 
from the fear of death, saves from the bitterness 
and sting of death, saves from impatience and re- 
pining amidst the dying agonies, saves even from 
all these overwhelming anxieties that you would 
think must make the death-bed of a fond parent 
so terrible, where the orphan children must be left 
behind without earthly provision. And there you 
see the salvation in the triumphant calm and peace 
wrought out for the departing spirit, and victory 
sits upon the brow, and a longing, longing for the 
heavenly home seems to throw the fondest earthly 



"TO THE UTTERMOST." 127 

home into the shade ! And the heavenly society — 
kindred and friends that are there — seem so ineffa- 
bly attractive as to make those dear ones that were 
most doted on here only secondary and inferior in 
their charms. 

And all this is the proof — the shining proof — 
that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost. And 
the secret of all this is that yonder in heaven at 
the Fathers side he is busy in his intercessions 
— the living Saviour — actively officiating for his 
dying children where the dying Stephen saw him 
— praying that they may be with him where he is, 
that they may behold his glory, and so he conies 
down and meets them in the dark valley, with his 
shepherd rod and staff, and stands at the dying 
bed, vanquishing Satan and hushing his malicious 
accusations, and whispering peace ! And his own 
Spirit — the Blessed third Person of the Trinity — 
is making responsive intercessions in the heart, 
with groanings that can not be uttered, taking 
of the things of Christ and showing them to the 
inward sight while the natural eye is sealing up 
in death, opening the vision to celestial glories at 
the very moment that it is utterly closed to earth — 

" Trembling, hoping — lingering, flying, 
Oh ! the pain — the bliss of dying." 

"Oh ! had we learned what death alone brings nigh, 
The dread had been to live and not to die." 



VIII. 

PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

"Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.' ' — ■ 
John xi. 5. 

The personal love of Jesus is that of which we 
find it hard to be persuaded ; especially, as respects 
ourselves, that the risen, glorified God-man, from 
his throne, loves me ; loves me — a sinner as I am 
— loves me by name, loves me as distinct and dif- 
ferent from all others, loves me with all my infirm- 
ities, loves me with any such love as we feel and 
value in our human circles — this is hard to esti- 
mate and apply. Yet the whole Gospel is based 
upon the idea of personal love — that makes it good 
news and glad tidings to individuals, and not mere- 
ly to the race in general. 

And love itself, if it were only universal and not 
particular, if it were only judicial and governmental 
and not personal, would not be valued by any of 
us. Nay, even such fatherhood as is claimed by 
those who hold God equally bound to all, and in- 
discriminate, therefore, in his salvation, can have 
no perceptible, sensible weight with any man to 
control his living. It is practically nought until 
it comes home to himself and reaches his individual 



PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 129 

case. For, if the love that is felt towards me is 
only a sort of official love, then I do not value it 
as appealing to my heart ; if it is an in discriminat- 
ing love, only the same to me as to all men, then 
I do not feel the sweet constraint of it, with all its 
claims to a loving return; if it lay no demand for 
holy living, and make no provision whatever for 
personal character, then I can not respect it, as 
worthy of consideration. The Gospel provision, 
though it proclaim good- will to men in general, is, 
nevertheless, in its whole idea, a provision for men 
in particular; and the salvation can be applied only 
as it comes home to each case by itself, and makes 
its claims personal in all their application. 

Love therefore is, in its very nature, special and 
partial. This is its ruling idea. It finds a per- 
sonal object among others on which it fixes with 
fond affection, and it is only by such personal 
choice that one or another comes to be a special 
recipient of one's love. Out of such affinities grow 
all the tender and endearing relations which pre- 
vail among creatures. And God himself recog- 
nizes this high law of love for his own action. 

But we can not readily feel the force of Jesus' 
love, as we can feel that of fellow-creatures. It 
seems so theoretical, so merely doctrinal and theo- 
logical. It is hard to bring it to any sensible real- 
ization — as if we could feel his warm hand grasp- 
ing ours, or his warm embrace, or his loving kiss, 
pressing us to his heart. 

And yet, if we consider, his love must be even 

more real and more personal than that of fondest 
9 



130 PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

friends. If he could come to our homeland lodge 
under our roof, and sit at our table, in the flesh, 
as he did in the family at Bethany, this would 
make it more real to our apprehension. If we 
could see him coming in at our door at our call 
of distress, if we could see his tears of sympathy 
at the grave of a brother, if we could hear him 
summon our dead from the tomb — then we could 
value the love as something more than human. 
But he is distant, he is invisible. And yet he is 
personally present with us, only not in the flesh; 
all the while present, as he could not be in the 
flesh ; more really and fully and effectively present 
than he could ever be in the body. He is able to 
succor us in every case, more able, by far, than if 
he were bound to those earthly conditions of his 
humiliation. 

And now the question is simply a personal one. 
Does Jesus love me? If so, is he then daily and 
hourly caring for me, keeping me ? Is it his hand 
that preserved me in that peril, sheltered me from 
that blow, raised me from that sickness. Nay, 
was the physician's counsel and remedy his ac- 
tual agency by another hand ? And am I to 
thank him for the daily bread and for the night's 
repose ? Can I so receive and believe it ? This is 
the practical difficulty. And hence we are prone 
to go as if there were no Jesus' love beating in 
his heart towards us, or as if the truth, in this 
respect, were only the cold doctrine of a creed, 
and not a living reality. 

The passage before us tells us of Jesus' love to 



PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 131 

a family group at Bethany. The announcement 
is brief. It descends to no particulars as to the 
personal grounds, only it includes the household. 
This is beautiful. 

The household covenant is a feature of both 
economies of grace. It was instituted as the lead- 
ing feature of the covenant with Abraham, and 
looked to his generations so distinctly and spe- 
cially as to require the sacramental seal of this 
household relationship. The family itself is God's 
institution, and it was meant to subserve a glorious 
design in the economy of grace. Else, why did 
he set the solitary in families, why did he reveal 
himself as having a love for the households of his 
people, except it were to sanctify those relations, 
and to make all that special influence that clusters 
round the family hearth a ministry of grace and 
salvation?. At the beginning, the church was in 
the house. And this is still and always, the fun- 
damental, vital idea. Family religion is in order 
to sanctuary ordinances and church privileges, and 
it is essential to the existence of the church. 

God perpetuates his church by means of a pious 
posterity. If there had been no sacrament of in- 
fant baptism in the Christian church, this would 
have seemed such a defect in the light of the past 
economy, and in the view of our natural constitu- 
tion in the household, that we should have heard 
the Jew clamoring against the Gospel as being 
narrow and restrictive, and as denying to him 
the benefits which he enjoyed for his house, un- 
der the old dispensation. Nay, more, I think par- 



132 PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

ents would scarcely have been encouraged to bring 
their infant children to the arms of Jesus for his 
blessing, and he would scarcely have uttered to 
them those precious words, " Suffer the little chil- 
dren to come unto me and forbid them not, for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." Nay, further. 
If there had been found no baptism for households 
— such as Lydia's and the jailer's — we are sure 
that there would have been a loud call for such 
an ordinance to take the place of circumcision, as 
a seal of the covenant of grace. 

The whole question of infant baptism resolves 
itself into the simple question of the unity of 
Scripture and the unity of the old and new dis- 
pensations. And hence, they who have denied 
infant baptism, as belonging to the New Testa- 
ment, have been forced, in distinguished instances, 
to deny the obligation of the Old Testament upon 
the Christian church, as a rule of life. 

And the whole Christian instinct cries out against 
this, and every parental instinct cries out against 
the denial of a sacramental ordinance for the chil- 
dren. How can we look upon the dear children 
at Christmas-time and bid them be happy in the 
birth of the Bethlehem Babe, and yet hold them 
to be excluded from the covenant blessings by the 
Lord Jesus — as if the covenant with Abraham had 
been a grand mistake, and as if Christ Jesus had 
not come as a child in order to express his sympa- 
thy with the children, and to compass them about 
with the arms of his love. It is just by such means 
as this household baptism that Jesus Christ would 



PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 133 

have his religion introduced into the family, and 
would have our children marked as his from the 
first, just as the oriental shepherd took pains to 
put his brand upon the lambs, for they were most 
in danger of going astray. 

This household at Bethany is a household of the 
children, as Abraham's household was — the sisters 
and an only brother are here — where the parents 
are no more. And all along the list they are re- 
corded as Christ's — Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 

What a blessed home! How close the affinity 
and how sacred the joy in each other's love ! No 
one of them outside! No antagonisms, therefore, 
as where the church and the world are brought 
into conflict in the same home circle ! No painful 
anxieties, as where one straying one is watched 
by sisterly care and counsel, all in vain. "Martha, 
and her sister, and Lazarus!" All of them bound 
up together in the bundle of eternal love. 

But we notice further, that it was Jesus' love to 
that family, not in the general, but in the particular! 
It was to each of them by name. 

And this included personal peculiarities, differ- 
ences of taste and temper — I know not what. We 
can already see how Martha differed from Mary, 
and yet Jesus loved them both; the careful, anx- 
ious housekeeper, as well as the devout worship- 
per at his feet. For Mary also kept the house, and 
Martha also sat at Jesus' feet, though not in the 
same proportion of time and attention. These ex- 
cesses of Martha's carefulness he will correct by his 
seasonable counsels, and he will encourage Mary's 



134 PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

devoutness by his loving word of approval. And 
Lazarus — he also was an object of Jesus' love. He 
was loved as a young man — as one of nearly his 
own age — and therefore of his close companion- 
ship, who was known therefore as one of his spe- 
cial favorites at Bethany. 

Jesus loved the sisters. 

Who says that this religion is good enough for 
the women? This is its highest encomium — that 
it comes home to the culture and refinement and 
tenderness of womankind. Woman was every- 
where smiled upon and lifted up from her oriental 
degradation and blessed by him. He stood related 
to woman as he did not to man, as no other being 
did — with a human mother and no human father. 
No wonder that the women, all the way from Gal- 
ilee, followed him in Judea and ministered to him 
of their substance. No wonder that the daugh- 
ters of Jerusalem wept after him as he staggered 
under the weight of his cross. No wonder that 
the Marys were last at his cross, and first at his 
sepulchre. 

I have seen the women of Italy carrying the 
hod, and worse, I have seen the women of Egypt 
and of Asia treated like beasts — no girls in the 
schools, no women in the mosques, as if they were 
not fit to be educated nor fit to worship God. 

But the Old Testament religion honored the women. 
Sarah is on the list of Old Testament worthies, as 
a splendid example of faith; and Deborah was a 
prophetess and a leader of the people; and Miriam 
was a sweet singer of triumphal psalms; and Han- 



PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 135 

nah was an honored mother, bringing her chil- 
dren to God ; and Ruth was an elegant instance of 
devotion; and Esther was the beautiful, queenly- 
petitioner, that saved her people by her patriotic 
prayers; and Jael was a heroine for Israel; and 
Rahdb staked her all for their salvation. And in 
striking contrast with all these, there was one such 
woman as Jezebel. 

And then, at Christ's coming, there was that 
good old Anna, the prophetess, who could always 
be seen in all weathers at church, all Sabbath time 
at public worship, and also through the week. 
And there was Elizabeth, who walked with her 
husband, Zacharias, in all the commandments and 
ordinances of the Lord, blameless. Who, then, 
can wonder at such a record as this of our text — 
"Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister." 

That wonderful mission of the Marys at the 
resurrection — how it rebuked the slowness, and 
apathy, and unbelief of the men; that assuring 
testimony that they had seen the angels, and had 
seen the Lord. And it was not only then, but often 
since in the Christian Church, that it has been 
written — " They found it, even as the women had 
said!" 

The men can not always sympathize with wom- 
an's Christian work. They count it a weak enthusi- 
asm, just as the apostles even counted the women's 
testimony from the sepulchre as idle tales and be- 
lieved them not. The shepherds, next to the an- 
gels, were the first publishers of the advent. But 
the women, early in the morning, were the first 



136 PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

publishers of the resurrection and of our Christi- 
anity, as it is founded on the resurrection of Christ. 
What the apostles were commissioned to bear wit- 
ness of, they received first from the women. And 
but for those rousing, burning words of the Marys, 
those ministers of Christ might have sat still in 
their discouragement and disbelief. What wonder 
that he showed himself first to Mary Magdalene ! 

Who does not see that woman has a heart for 
Christian work, an ardor and alacrity in the ser- 
vice of Christ which reveals a special affinity and 
makes us wonder no more at such a narrative. 
How we find them everywhere, whatever their 
household cares — patient, sympathizing, laborious, 
self-sacrificing— waiting upon the destitute, search- 
ing out the lost, pushing forward the great schemes 
of beneficence ! How we find them rebuking the 
excuses of the men who plead their farms and mer- 
chandises! And while the Martlias might plead 
their housekeeping cares as well, how we see them 
early in the day disposing of these, and hurrying 
to the work of the Master! "Now Jesus loved 
Martha, and her sister!" 

A woman, without work for Christ, is, therefore, 
without her proper occupation. A woman work- 
ing for Christ, and sitting at the feet of Jesus, is the 
true ideal of womanhood. That apostolic woman, 
Dorcas, honored Joppa by her good works, as much 
as Peter honored it by his house-top prayers. What 
a record of her, that "she was full of good works, 
and alms-deeds that she did! " And when she died, 
there was a lamentation in the city, and the church 



PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 137 

sent for an apostle to come thither and help them 
in their distress. And that upper chamber, where 
she was laid out for the burial, was crowded with 
the weeping widows, who " showed the coats and 
garments which this good woman had made, while 
she was with them." And no wonder that the 
apostle thought such a life too valuable to be lost, 
and exerted his miraculous gift to raise her up 
from the dead. The Dorcases are not all dead, 
blessed be God! 

And she was a young woman, as her other 
name, "Tabitha" imports. 

The young women of the church are not all 
given over to gaiety and pleasure-seeking, but some 
are eager to give their youth-time to Christ, and 
to deeds of Christian beneficence — teaching in the 
Sabbath-school, clothing the poor, and supplying 
the destitute, by their angelic ministries. 

This is woman's mission — everywhere and al- 
ways. These are ivomans rights which belong to 
her by divine constitution, and which Jesus will 
vindicate in his church — the right of blessing, and 
being blessed. The woman blessed among women, is 
Mary, the virgin mother; and the woman whose 
praise is sung as blessed above ivomen, is Jael, the 
wife of Heber the Kenite, driving the nails through 
the temples of the foe of Israel, and pinning the 
chieftain of the wicked to the ground. 

And yet, I say, the love of Jesus is consistent 
with diversities of temper, and with defects of 
character. 

" I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 



138 PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

and the God of Jacob" — Abraham, the faithful 
worker, Isaac, the patient sufferer, and Jacob, the 
cunning schemer. Martha's complaint to Christ 
against her sister was too much in the spirit of 
petulance and censoriousness to win his approba- 
tion; and it conveyed, also, an ungracious insinu- 
ation against his own love for herself — " Dost thou 
not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone ? " 

It is hard, indeed, to do laborious service, and 
see others idle or only occasionally at work. We 
find it hard to have the church enterprises rolled 
upon us alone, as if the more we do the more we 
ought to do. And some would seem to have some 
right to be impatient and fretful at the sluggish- 
ness and inefficiency of so many. But if we wait 
for all to be with us at service, we may wait for- 
ever and do nothing, because others will not do 
their part: But these are our infirmities, to relax 
our service because others are inactive, or to do 
our work under a protest against the do-nothing 
class in the church. 

But Jesus loved Martha, even though, in a mo- 
ment of complaining, she cast a reproach upon her 
sister and upon himself. What should any of us 
do, if Jesus could not love us, notwithstanding our 
defects and our unpleasant peculiarities? He loves 
us enough to administer his loving reproofs and 
corrections. 

And yet, further. This love of Jesus is so per- 
sonal, as to be fitly pleaded in distress. 

The fact of Jesus' love is something so moment- 
ous and so precious, as to stand a man in stead, 



PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 139 

when trouble comes. Be it loss of friends or loss 
of property or loss of health — whatever the sorrow, 
this love can be relied on, and mentioned, and 
made the basis of request for his presence and 
succor in the adversity. 

How natural for these sisters to send word to 
Jesus, from the sick bed of Lazarus — "Lord behold 
he whom thou lovest is sick" We know not what 
proof this suffering brother had ever given of his 
love to Christ. But this is not mentioned. It is 
not said, Behold he who loves thee is sick. No ! 
That would not be the proper plea. The Scrip- 
ture nowhere so presents it. 

There is so much defect in our love to Christ, 
and it is so fickle and feeble in its best condition 
that it will not bear to be named as the ground of 
petition, even for a visit from Christ. No. It was 
the boasting Peter who said, "Though all men 
should forsake thee, yet will not I — though all 
should be offended, yet will not I." But John, 
the beloved disciple, boasted Jesus' love to him, 
and not his love to Jesus — and he gloried in the 
name of "that disciple whom Jesus loved" 

Aud now can we so appreciate this love of Christ 
as to feel its availability in our distress? Can we 
so substantiate it, as we do our human, earthly 
loves, in all their personality? Can we gather up 
for ourselves or for one another the proofs of Jesus' 
love to ourselves, so as to mention in his ear the 
simple fact, as a plea for his presence and assist- 
ance? Do we inquire for the daily proofs of his 
favor, so as to comfort ourselves with this endear- 



140 PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

ing relation, and make it our recourse in time of 
trouble? Can we enter at ail into the triumphant 
language of the apostle — "Who shall separate us 
from the love of Christ' 1 — from the personal love 
which he bears to us? No power in all the uni- 
verse can do it, for Us preciousness is above all 
price. 

And yet, observe, this love of Jesus finds resjwn- 
sive love in thorn who are its objec 

Though Mary is one day sitting at his feet, 
seemingly inactive and inattentive to Martha's 
call, or to the table service, yet her record is 
beautiful, and her loving acts are referred to here 
"n connection with Jesus acts of love — "It was that 
Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and 
wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Laz- 
arus was sick." That act of rare devotion is ren- 
dered now, as a natural response to that foregoing 
love he had shown, when sorrow brooded over the 
household, and when her only brother was laid 
low upon his sick bed, and in the very jaws of 
death. Lazarus who had been dead — was he not 
now sitting at the table with them ? 

That anointing cost her an alabaster box of 
very precious ointment. It may have wrung from 
her heart a pang, at the time, to break it upon the 
head of this friend. It wrung from Judas, with 
his hypocritical cant, a reflection upon the prodi- 
gality that would throw so much money away 
upon a favorite, when it could have been given 
to the poor. But Judas hung himself, and Mary 
exalted her sex by her humble sacrifice before 



PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 141 

God. That was her fond heart's offering — and 
had she not, already, gotten more than she gave — 
gotten back her dead brother from the sepulchre ? 
And the Holy Ghost mentions her ointment and 
tears in this connection of Jesus' resurrection work, 
as if it were only the responsive love that ruled in 
these kindred hearts. 

How many in the church are only hoping, upon 
the whole, to be saved; only enrolled in the mem- 
bership, without ever having waked to the con- 
sciousness of Jesus personal love; without ever 
having felt the sweet sense of his personal favor ; 
without ever laying to heart the fact of pardoned 
sin; without ever dreaming of any such affection 
on his part as a mother's love, or a brother's ; with- 
out ever trying to grasp the fact that he loves 
them by name — " Martha, Mary, Lazarus" — each 
and all ! And it is just the lack of this apprehen- 
sion of a great Gospel fact which cuts the nerves 
of individual exertion in the church, which brings 
so few Marthas to set Christ's table in the house, 
and so few Marys to break their costly perfume 
boxes upon Jesus' head. 

And they who love Christ, and show the proofs 
of it in their living, are also proving to the world 
that Christ loves them. These are our only tangi- 
ble proofs. It was the service done to Christ in 
that household at Bethany, which made every one 
who knew them aware of Christ's love to them. 
And so we know his love to Mary, by Mary's oint- 
ment poured upon his head; and his love to Mar- 
tha, by Martha's generous spreading of his table; 



142 PERSONAL LOVE OF JESUS. 

and when all say that he loved Lazarus, we know 
that Lazarus must have done such loving acts as 
made him known at Bethany, as Jesus' friend — 
such acts as were the response and reflection of 
Jesus' love. This love of Jesus makes sunshine in 
the house that death itself can not long darken, 
and that no power in the universe can destroy. 

But you doubt about the evidences of Christ's 
love to you. Come down to the child's simplicity. 

"Jesus loves me, this I know, 
For the Bible tells me so." 

And if this is found in the Bible, why not gather 
up the documentary proofs — the title-deeds, and 
covenants, and bonds, that are written, signed and 
sealed here. And if it is true of you, then it is the 
most precious, most important fact in your exist- 
ence. Then lay the fact to heart. Then live as 
one beloved of Jesus. Then send for him in trouble, 
tell him your wants, your complaints ; tell him all 
the case, as friend with friend. And only remem- 
ber that his love is royal. He loves to be laid un- 
der obligations. He loves to be relied on, pleaded 
with, confided in. Let his love be no more a mere 
doctrine, but a living reality. 



IX. 



THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST AND 
SOUGHT BY HIM. 

"And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to 
this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the 
Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." — 
Luke xix. 9-10. 

The mission of Jesus Christ to men is fall of 
kindest advances for our salvation. If any are 
urged to seek him, it is chiefly with this encour- 
agement — that he is seeking them, and has come 
for this purpose to seek and to save them that are 
lost. Before they can give a thought to the mat- 
ter, he has already groaned under the curse of 
their sins, and has even died for them on the 
cross. This foregoing love is a grand, attractive 
fact that qualifies all our understandings of the 
Gospel. 

So many, like the man of the one talent, are 
looking upon the terms of salvation as hard, im- 
possible — regarding God as an austere man, and, 
out of their own narrowness of feeling, are attrib- 
uting a greater narrowness to him. And they 
have no room for confidence even in his dying 
love ! They forget that, when this planet of ours 
had broken away from the harmonious system of 



144 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

worlds, there was no method for its recovery but 
that the grand laws of attraction be brought to 
bear upon it. Its own gravitation would carry it 
down, down to the deepest depths of ruin. The very 
velocity with which it tore away would plunge it 
into remediless destruction. 

And now, therefore, the law is, that no man can 
come back to God, except by the Father's drawings 
— that Christ, as he is lifted up, shall draw all men 
unto him. Hence, this is now the attractive sys- 
tem of providence and grace. The message is now 
the sweet, alluring offer of the Gospel — nay, more 
than an offer — the proclamation of peace, which 
only insists on acceptance. And the daily deal- 
ing is now the hand of kind constraint which 
works with every man in all his life. 

Inere is not a man of you but has been thus 
plainly dealt with, for his drawing to God. Some 
of you have been prospered in business, and that 
was a most kind drawing. Others have been dis- 
appointed and baffled — perhaps utterly broken up 
— and that was a gentle constraining towards a 
better world. 

How, then, are you interpreting your daily his- 
tory? How are you understanding your gains and 
losses, your successes and reverses in the world ? 

If such be the explanation of your life's affairs, 
then surely this matter of your salvation is, with 
God at least, an omnipresent interest. But if this 
be his constant concern in you — nay, if this be 
the only accounting for your history on earth, that 
you have been kept under treatment rather than 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 145 

banished long ago to despair, then you will grant 
this one point, that there is every encouragement 
and every inducement offered you to seek salvation. 

There is a certain class who see nothing but dif- 
ficulty in the way of their being saved — not in- 
deed as regards God, but as regards themselves. 
They have not the requisites in their view. They 
have a kind of conviction, but it is not overpower- 
ing nor deep. They have a kind of belief in this 
Gospel, but it is not moving nor positive ; and 
hence, they only see a great gulf fixed between 
themselves and heaven. There needs feeling, and 
they have not the right; there needs a present, 
pressing motive to seek Christ, and they have not 
the right; all that they have is hard-heartedness 
and infinite distance from Christ. And if they are 
ever to be saved, they imagine it must be by some 
mysterious, overpowering impulse — they know not 
how or whence. Others, they believe, have been 
brought to salvation, not by thinking on their ways 
— applying themselves to the Gospel message, and 
turning their feet to God's testimonies — not in any 
such calm, sober, rational manner, but by sudden 
and strange workings in them, which could neither 
be explained nor resisted. 

But is salvation, then, all a mere lottery, a casu- 
alty or fatality? Can so momentous an interest 
have been left to the mere chances of such a blind 
occurrence ? Has God proposed to men this great 
redemption, and yet not brought it at all within 
their reach ? 

The question is here solved by a case in hand ! 
10 



146 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

How Christ meets men in his mission of grace — 
how the acquaintance is made between a sinner 
and the Saviour, and how wonderfully this salva- 
tion comes home to every man, anticipating his first 
inquiry, suiting every necessity, overcoming every 
difficulty, so as to be the most immediately access- 
ible and available to any seeking soul — all this is 
illustrated by a living instance in this history. 

It was in the last week of our Lord's career on 
earth, and on his last journey to Jerusalem. Jer- 
icho, the city of palm-trees and of stirring busi- 
ness, was specially astir that day, because of this 
unusual procession that passed through the streets. 
Among them the citizens could distinguish a poor 
blind beggar, whose eyesight had just been given 
him by the divine wonder-worker there ; and that 
Bartimeus, glad and grateful, was shouting after 
Jesus, and others were gathering to the throng. 

Business had its claims there as it has here. 
But there was a chief merchant of Jericho whom 
no claims of worldly business could keep back that 
day from following after this Son of God. He was 
a custom-house officer, but what of that ? He was 
even a chief among these odious publicans, and he 
was rich — likely enough had gotten rich by his ex- 
tortions as a tax-gatherer. But all that shall not 
hinder him now from seeking Jesus. The result 
will show that this merchant was no loser by quit- 
ting the custom-house that day, and letting go all 
his questions of tariffs and taxes and trade, his 
invoices and receipts and commissions, and giv- 
ing up his time and his bargains to look after 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 147 

that Jesus, who was so soon to be welcomed as 
his guest and Saviour. 

Christ is here an applicant for the sinner's hospi- 
tality — asks for admittance to the publican's house. 
He only seeks to put himself under these pleasant 
obligations, just to institute personal acquaintance, 
just to open a familiar intercourse. He asks the 
man to entertain him, just that under this invita- 
tion of himself, he may put forward his own gra- 
cious invitation to his own house on earth and in 
heaven. 

We call your attention, then, to this statement of 
Christ's gracious mission, as avowedly illustrated 
by the case of Zaccheus. Here is the business-man 
seeking Christ, and finding Christ seeking him — 
"This day is salvation come to this house, foras- 
much as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son 
of Man is come to seek and to save that which 
was lost." 

Observe, first of all, how inadequate were this 
mans views of Christ at the outset of this matter. 
Indeed his ignorance was complete and confessed. 
He sought to see Jesus, who he was. But this 
is the Gospel exhortation — " Behold the Lamb of 
God." What if, like some who hear me, he had 
waited until he should have some special discov- 
eries of Christ, he knew not whence ; some inward 
revelations of him that should irresistibly captivate 
and constrain, he knew not how. It was just be- 
cause he did not know who he was, that he would 
take some present opportunity of seeing him. 

Is not this a point from which any man here 



148 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

could fairly start out in the matter of his salva- 
tion? What if, like this rich publican, he should 
find himself so speedily drawn into the very com- 
pany of Christ, and into the mighty currents of 
that whirlpool of his love, and Christ sitting with 
him, the same day, at his own table — the Saviour 
wonderfully a guest in his own house! Are you 
to wait' for something — for any thing — in the way 
of views and discoveries, which you have not this 
moment? Is there need of any such delay? Is 
there a chasm here which needs first to be filled 
up, or bridged over, by some mighty movement of 
God, before you can take a step in the way of see- 
ing Jesus? You may protest to all our urgencies 
that you have no adequate views of Christ as yet, 
and so you can not start. We know you have not. 
But this is the very motive for your seeking him — 
at least to see who he is; for your making some 
becoming inquiry into his word and work. 

Is he the Creator of these heavens and this earth, 
and you know him not ? Is it he that has peopled 
the upper worlds with angels, and this globe with 
all its inhabitants, and you care not to know who 
he is ? Has he been so long time with you in his 
church, in the Gospel, and yet you know him not ? 
Though you have learned to lisp his name from in- 
fancy, are you ignorant of him still ? 

If there could be one Person of the Blessed Trin- 
ity greater to us than another, it is he ! He is 
not only God, but man also ! He has not only the 
throne of the universe, but the Mediator's throne 
of grace besides. He is not only Jehovah, but 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 149 

he is Judge also. And he is not onlv Lord, but 
Saviour ! 

And though vou are this moment blind to all 
his attributes, and though you have no conception 

of him that could charm you at all: say at least, 
that you will, the rather, on this very account, 
k a sight of him. Xo inadequate views of 
Christ could be a reason for vour delav. but all 
the rather a reason for your promptest action. 
And it is just because you never yet rose to any 
such inquiry, never yet took the first earnest step 
towards a discovery of him. and for this object, 
that you sit in ignorance and darkness still. 

But observe, secondly, how inadequate were this 
man's J at the ovtsd. 

You wait for proper feelings, for some strange, 
miraculous movement in you, something that shall 
strike vou down with terror, or dazzle vou with 
light : some evident arrest and seizure of the 
Almighty hand, unaccountable and unreasonable. 
You are sitting under all the voices from Calvary, 
and all the calls from heaven itself, as though noth- 
ing had come to you as yet. When you think of 
your being converted, you know not how to com- 
pass it. nor how to promote it. because yon see not 
how you can work these feelings in you, which 
yon deem prerequisite: and here yon sit. like the 
impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, for years to- 
gether, as though Jesus had never passed this way. 
when he dwells here, and here delights to core. 

Whence has such a prevalent fallacy arisen in 
the human mind? What an arch delusion of Sa- 



150 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

tan, to make men believe that they have yet to sit 
waiting for the Christ, like a blinded Jew who 
waits for the Messiah ! So in the garden he con- 
tradicted the threatening, and said, u Ye shall not 
surely die." And here under the Gospel, at the 
gate-way of the new paradise, he countervails the 
promise, and says, "Ye shall not surely live!" He 
tempts the atheist to say, " There is no God ; " and 
conscience whispers, that the very tongue that 
utters it, is a piece of mechanism whose mute 
but resistless testimony contradicts the lie! So 
he tempts you to say, "There is no Saviour;" and 
these sanctuaries, and Scriptures, and sacraments 
utter the testimony of long generations to rebuke 
the dreadful falsehood. 

Could you not at least inquire honestly, ear- 
nestly, who he is ? This man was moved, it 
would seem by the merest curiosity. At most 
his mind was open to conviction. General im- 
pressions that he had, or common report that he 
had heard, led him to seek a view of Christ — not 
even an interview with him. He had no thought 
of following him as a disciple. The lowest desire, 
the very lowest point of interest, was his. You 
would have held back, though it were in the mat- 
ter of your soul's salvation, because these were not 
as yet the right feelings, nor the proper motives in 
approaching Christ. 

But see how a man can set out in this matter, 
with all his ignorance, and get that ignorance 
enlightened; how he can seek a sight of Christ 
at least from quite inadequate motives, and with 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 151 

most unworthy feelings, and be met, and more 
than met, by the Divine Saviour. 

Must it not needs be so? Whoever started in 
this matter with right views, or out of any right- 
eous affections? For then Christ had already been 
found, and the great work of the Spirit of Christ 
had been needless. 

Could not any man here start this moment from 
this low point and find himself like this chief pub- 
lican, speedily in the closest companionship with 
Christ — his understanding enlightened, his heart 
opened, his house honored by Christ's presence, 
the father of a family welcoming Christ to his 
utmost hospitality, and Christ pronouncing the 
blessing at his domestic board? 

Could not these men who have long sat under 
the Gospel, move at once in this matter, without 
waiting for something — they know not what — and 
find this great business of the soul done for them, 
and in them, to their everlasting salvation ? Could 
not these almost Christians succeed as well as this 
publican? To say that something is in the way, 
and to conceive that this Gospel message is not to 
you as you are, but only to you as you ought to 
be, is to nullify this grace, and to make a fatal mis- 
take. It had as well be any other falsity. You 
had as well be counting the Scriptures untrue, or 
be dreaming that there is no eternity, no judgment, 
no Jesus Christ, no heaven nor hell. "Then shall 
ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord." 

But observe, thirdly, how sudden ivas the change 
in this man. 



152 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

How long did it take him to be a Christian that 
day; or the jailor at the prison door in the night; 
or the Samaritan woman at noon at the well; or 
Lydia, at the river-side at evening, in the place of 
prayer? From being a mere spectator, gazing at 
this wondrous personage as he passed by, he came 
to be an acquaintance, a friend, a follower. The 
same day of his utter ignorance and distance, he 
found himself entertaining Christ as a guest, under 
his own roof, and having him sit at his own table, 
and cheerfully acknowledging his claims — and his 
heart already moved to new purposes of living, 
and new ideas of integrity and duty. 

He was rich before in this world's goods. But 
now he had suddenly another kind of riches, which 
made the fine gold dim in itself, yet in regard to 
its use and in the light of Christ's love, gave it a 
new lustre as to be employed in his service ; made 
him talk of giving half his hoarded goods to the 
poor ; made him at once profess Christ as King no 
less than Prophet and Priest to him. And all this 
great, radical, practical change in a day — in an 
hour. 

He was a man in high station before. He held 
a post of monetary trust and was chief in the of- 
fice, yet his was a most thorough conversion. He 
arose now to newness of life. You can see that 
the whole cast of the man was altered. And this 
important business-man renounced the world's idol- 
atries and the publican's extortions, and launched 
out upon a new career — a career of usefulness, of 
liberality, and of Christian discipleship. 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 153 

But you know not what mighty convulsion can 
ever work such an important change in yourself. 
You can not conceive how it could ever be reached. 
You imagine yourself somehow excluded from this 
grace at present, or that it belongs to some other 
and privileged class. But Zaccheus, though a de- 
spised publican, and probably enough a Roman op- 
pressor, was now, in Christ's view, a son of Abra- 
ham, and an Israelite indeed. You think of your 
salvation, either as a kind of miracle that must be 
like that of the quaking earth and rending rocks 
at the crucifixion, for which, therefore, you have 
only to wait; or you look upon it as a most for- 
midable, discouraging work of your own, which 
you have not the heart to undertake. You can 
not think of it, except as the most far-off and in- 
accessible result. All this mistake about the work 
of seeking Christ arises from a misconception of 
Christ's work in seeking men. 

We say then, first of all, that his redeeming 
work for sinners is already complete. 

It is not as though he had yet another death to 
die for which you must tarry, nor as though. the 
benefits of his death were, as yet, inaccessible to 
you, because of something which he has left un- 
done. The redemption is wrought out. And what 
is the Gospel message, but the tidings of this ? 

And yet it is to you, as though no news had 
come; or as though it were nugatory because of 
something lacking to make it good and available 
to men. Hence you are laboring, without rope or 
bucket, to draw water from this deep well, when 



154 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

Christ is pressing the cup of water to your very- 
lips. You do not consider what has been already 
and actually achieved for your salvation, nor how 
complete an atonement has been made, nor how 
perfect a provision altogether has been furnished. 
You do not reflect on the glorious perfection of 
him who has undertaken this. You do not see 
the explicitness of the offer as it is recorded here 
by the Spirit. When you are urged to seek Christ, 
you do not think of it as an encouraging summons 
to accept salvation, but as a severe and cold com- 
mand to do an impossible work ; and for this very 
mistake of supposing a bridgeless gulf between 
you and this grace, you sit still, you dismiss the 
matter as impracticable for you; or, at least, as 
out of the question now! And all the good news 
that ought to have charmed your heart to hear 
falls dead upon you, as though it were a pro- 
posal to buy heaven for a million pounds, when 
you have not a farthing to give, nor any possible 
resources. 

You can never go forward in this matter with- 
out starting out; you can never get light nor peace 
in Christ, except in the way of Christian duty. 
His cures come to you in the shape of commands: 
"Rise, take up thy bed and walk:" "Stretch forth 
thine hand." So he said to the lepers, "Go show 
yourselves to the priests and offer the gift which 
Moses commanded." He bade them to go forward, 
just as though they were already healed — "and as 
they went, they were healed." 

But in your neglect to seek Christ, there is also, 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 155 

secondly, an utter misconception of Christ's pecu- 
liar work in seeking sinners ! 

The text declares this to be his very object in all 
his mission of grace to our earth, to seek and to 
save the lost. If so, it is the single explanation of 
all these Gospel messages to you, of all these means 
of grace, of all the truth delivered, of all the provi- 
dences dealt out to you. If so, it is true — aston- 
ishingly, touchingly true — that Christ has long 
been out seeking you, using constraints to draw 
you, variously working to lead you; and there is 
not a single item in all the vast array of his dis- 
pensations towards you, but is so to be understood. 
This would seem our only accounting for your 
respite upon earth, for your prolonged lives and 
opportunities. 

Are you, then, idly waiting for something more ? 
For what? For Christ to move? He has moved 
the heavens and the earth for this ; he has moved 
with groans and blood up the crucifixion hill for 
this ; he has moved in all the checkered traces of 
your history, just for this ! You can not say but 
you have manifold drawings, and have resisted 
them all; you can not say, but again, this holy 
hour, Christ brings you here in his providence, and 
accosts you with his word of grace, for this. And 
what wait you for? Does not all this bring the 
matter home to you? Have you the warrant for 
any delay? When there is all urgency from the 
hand that would save you, are you sitting, wait- 
ing for the heavens to open, and the Saviour to die 
again? If any amount of completion could put 



156 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

Christ's work within your reach, for its immediate 
avail, it could not be more complete than it is 
now. And if any winning, inviting aspect of the 
matter could encourage you to move at once, and 
take action upon it, is it not enough that he came 
in all this wondrous mission of grace, for this ex- 
press object, to seek out and to save the lost ? Is 
it no encouragement to a lost child to seek his 
father, if he can know that his father is actu- 
ally seeking him ? Did not the prodigal's doubt- 
ing, shivering heart leap with a bursting emotion 
when, in the far distance, he caught the first 
glimpse of his injured but loving parent, running 
to embrace him? Or where there has been rup- 
ture, is it no incentive to seek reconciliation, that 
already you are sought, for this very purpose ; and 
that already the offended party is proclaimed as 
reconciled ? 

Then why not move at once in this matter, at 
least to see Jesus, who he is. What if you should 
find him actually inquiring for you, and what if 
the first salutation is his voice, calling you as if 
by name, and welcoming you to all he has to give ? 
Tell us what this publican, more curious than right- 
eous at first, saw or heard now, that brought him 
so into close connection with Christ ? What was 
it but that he heard Christ call, heard Christ call- 
ing him— calling him by name, so that he could 
not mistake its reference to himself; calling him 
to come down and entertain him, at his house ? 

And such a call, only a thousand times repeated, 
you have had from your first moment of discretion. 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 157 

What more can you ever have ? You wait for some 
louder call ? Is it to be in the thunder, or earth- 
quake, or death itself, or the last trumpet's sound ? 
Have you not heard him say, " Come unto me and 
I will give you rest:" — "Come! Follow me!" — 
u Give me thy heart:" — u Come, for all things are 
now ready:" — "Open unto me, and I will come into 
you and sup with you, and you with me"? Is 
there any tiling to be waited for ? Should you not 
now, at once, admit Christ and entertain him, and 
rejoice in him ? 

But that this is so, will appear also, thirdly, from 
the very terms in which the call of Christ is made 
to you. Because it is addressed to all, to every one, 
to whosoever will; it is addressed to yourself, this 
moment, as truly and as much as to any other 
creature under heaven; as personally as if you 
were called by name. And what is it, but come ! 
It is a free, unconditioned invitation to all the ben- 
efits. It is not pay and come, or promise and come, 
or perform good works and come, or make new 
hearts and come, but come first of all, now and at 
once, without any delay. Come sinners — needy, 
helpless, lost — come! Come as you are and be 
saved ! 

This is Christ's work — to save sinners. This 
very lost estate of yours has brought out Christ, 
seeking you, seeking sinners such as you, and none 
but such. He seeks the lost. It is his glory and 
delight to receive you — miserable, sinful, lost as 
you are. And if there were the least to pay, you 
could not pay it. If there were the least to do 



158 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

acceptably, you could not do it. If there are pre- 
requisites and conditions of good feeling or good 
works, this utterly vitiates the matter for sinners, 
and makes it all an idle offer to you. 

But what do we hear in the Gospel. It is "come 
to the waters." Whatever is here flows as freely 
and as fully as the fountain streams, running over 
and gushing up from their deep eternal bed. You 
mistake the Gospel provision by supposing that 
instead of furnishing "all things that pertain to 
life and godliness," it requires the first holy acts 
to be of yourselves. He gives holy desire ; he 
gives Christian faith ; he gives true repentance ; 
he gives whatever is needful. He treats you as 
lost. And you must come as you are, to get 
whatever you require, from first to last. No mat- 
ter even what brings you to Christ ; no matter 
about the style of coming, so that you come to 
him as the onlv Saviour. 

Look now at the history of this new-made ac- 
quaintance that has brought a man at once to such 
a change of all his relations and destinies. It is 
given to the life as an avowed illustration of seek- 
ing Christ, and of Christ seeking and saving the 
lost. 

All that need be said in the book of truth about 
the nature of his first inquiry, is this — that this 
chief publican, ignorant altogether of Christ ex- 
cept from the common fame, sought to see Jesus, 
who he was. Difficulties presented themselves; 
but he had risen to this simple resolution that he 
would press through the crowd and climb up, if 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 159 

need be, to see him. He put himself in the path 
of Christ, of course, yet seeking only a view of 
him as yet, rather than an interview. And he 
found that Christ was seeking him, was already 
reading his secret feeling, was more than meeting 
his first desire. He knew him at last only by that 
personal revelation of himself — that Christ knew 
him first — called him now by name. All that you 
can say of the man is, that then and there, before 
he had uttered a word, he heard Christ calling, 
calling him to come, and he came down at once; 
made haste and came down. 

Christ bespoke his hospitality (amazing conde- 
scension!) asked to be a guest at his house, cared 
not only for himself, but for his family also, and 
the man received Christ joyfully. No wonder! No 
man of all that crowd could sneer at this publi- 
can for welcoming Christ. But all wondered that 
Christ had gone to be guest with a man that was 
a sinner. That publican's house was made happy 
that same hour. Christ crossed that threshold and 
said, " Peace be to this house." That man's table 
was honored by Christ's presence ; his lot was 
enriched by Christ's blessing. Christ declared to 
the man, that that day salvation had come to 
his dwelling. The convert found his whole soul 
warmed towards the Saviour, and changed in all 
its relations and resolutions. He is ready to pro- 
fess Christ; he does it on the spot, and under his 
own roof he repeats it. An altar to Christ is set 
up there ; he has new plans of living and of well- 
doing. 



160 THE MERCHANT SEEKING CHRIST 

What now shall be the history of this case ? He 
did not even knock to have it opened to him, half 
so much as Christ was found knocking at his door, 
and he opened to Mm. Zaccheus ran before the 
crowd; but Christ had run before Zaccheus. The 
man was called on by the heavenly guest to enter- 
tain him at his home. But oh ! he found himself 
the most entertained. He welcomed Christ, but 
he found himself more welcomed. The father of 
a household just opened to the Saviour, and lo ! 
the Saviour had come in to him to sup with him, 
and he with Christ, and his family were blessed by 
such a visitant. Oh, what a day was that to this 
publican and sinner ! Who had thought that his 
first starting out, in all his ignorance and preju- 
dice, and sin, that hour, would have led to such 
amazing and glorious results that very day. 

My hearers, do you tell me that you wait for 
something in this matter of seeking Christ? You 
ought to know the Gospel message and Christ's 
office-work well enough to be pressing through 
the crowd, or coming down from where you are 
posted along the way. You ought to make haste 
and come down, and receive him joyfully. Where 
have you climbed up now to see him? "Blessed 
sycamore ! by which Zaccheus climbed that day to 
heaven!" You have the means of grace at hand. 
The Gospel word is nigh thee. While you pray 
and complain that you find no answers, the an- 
swers are here already in the Scripture, fresh as 
though they came this moment from the skies. 
You look for a sign from heaven that shall assure 



AND SOUGHT BY HIM. 161 

you, so as to dispense with all exercise of trust 
You will have sight, and not faith. You can not 
help knowing that Christ calls you now, before you 
ever call to him. You can not help hearing him 
speaking directly to yourself as if by name, even 
along the road-side. And if you would respond to 
him like this chief merchant of Jericho, and enter- 
tain this Saviour in your heart and at your home, 
you too would find him abiding at your house to- 
day with his great salvation. 



X. 

TEARFUL SOWING AND JOYFUL REAPING. 

"They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth 
and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with 
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." — Psalm cxxvi. 5-6. 

The Psalmist celebrates in this beautiful psalm 
the return of the church from captivity by help 
of her covenant God. How joyous was the day ! 
How bright and blessed was the deliverance! It 
was morning after midnight. It was plenty after 
famine. It was rain after drought. And from such 
a glad and happy experience he deduces a great 
principle, applicable to all times and to the church, 
not only, but to the individual believer. "They 
that sow in tears, shall reap in joy." 

But this principle can not be of universal appli- 
cation. It is confined to the domain of Christian 
effort. Traced to the natural law, we could say 
that they who undertake and prosecute enterprises 
with anxious earnestness, such as often expresses 
itself in tears, do commonly meet with success, and 
obtain a joyous harvest of their anxious sowing. 

But this is, by no means, the universal experi- 
ence. Every one sees that many sow in tears 
and reap in tears also. See the man of the world, 
early and late busy, carrying on the service of 



TEARFUL SOWING, JOYFUL REAPING. 163 

mammon with sweating toil worthy of a better 
cause ; wearied in body and mind, worried and ex- 
hausted, sitting down at last to disappointment 
and despair. Oh! How the masses who forget 
God and go in pursuit of worldly pleasure, or 
of mad ambition, sow in tears and jeap in bitter 
weeping ! 

The service of Satan and of mammon is a hard 
service, drudging work and poor wages. Pity on 
the toiling laborers who have no rest, day nor 
night ; no release from their bondage and no fruit 
of their labor, but shame and sorrow ; where they 
drudge on, and are only crushed and cursed for 
their pains by the hard master whom they serve. 

There is no service but the service of God, that 
guarantees a splendid success. Think of this, ye 
who give body and soul to the cares of life and 
to its pleasures, and find your reward so hard and 
cruel, with no promise of relief forever and ever. 
Listen to those cheering words of the text and. 
inquire for this Master, who promises such joyous 
and blessed returns in his service. 

It may be fairly said, that there is no great 
result in life attained without hard labor. Men 
concede this every day in their worldly business. 
They are even willing to sow in tears at the pros- 
pect, however uncertain, of reaping, at length, 
in joy. There is ready sacrifice, daily self-denial, 
cheerful cross -bearing, patient bondage, to the 
work of mammon, in the bare hope of gaining, 
at length, an ample return. 

And yet, how hard it is, sometimes, for such to 



164 TEARFUL SOWING 

bear up under the blasted prospects and baffled ef- 
forts in business, with no security that it will ever 
be otherwise. But here, in the service of God, 
the sower can well afford the tears; he can bear 
up cheerfully under the present burdens, knowing 
that there shall surely come an abundant harvest 
— that none of his patient, painstaking labor shall 
be lost, that he shall yet go forth to the reaping, 
however it be long delayed, and that, 

"Though seed lie buried long in dust, 
It sha'n't deceive the hope. 
The precious grain shall not be lost, 
For grace insures the crop." 

There are divine maxims that the world quotes 
for its encouragement, but they belong to the peo- 
ple of God, that — "The darkest hour is just before 
the day," and that "man's extremity is God's op- 
portunity." The Scripture has it, as it was writ- 
ten in the history of Abraham. "In the mount 
the Lord shall be seen." The altar on which your 
Isaac is to be given up in tears to God, is the place 
where you shall behold marvels of God's mercy — 
where God shall graciously interpose, and all an- 
gels shall seem to be your bodyguard, and unim- 
agined ways of deliverance shall appear to turn 
the weeping into joy. 

So it is written, on the basis of the same divine 
guarantees, and as a fruit of the same Christian 
experience: "Blessed is the man whose strength is 
in thee ; in whose heart are the ways of them, who, 
passing through the valley of Baca, make it a 
well." I have seen stout men and tender women 



AND JOYFUL REAPING. 165 

passing through the valley of Baca, and the vale 
of weeping becomes to them a fountain of living 
waters, and God's gracious rains from heaven — all 
his showers of blessing — fill the pools which afflic- 
tion has scooped out in their path. 

Let us look now at the text, as it sets before us 
the certain results of Christian effort — the sure 
success of labor in Christ's service, however toil- 
some, and however discouraging, or disappointing 
it may any time appear. 

Every man is in a sense a husbandman, whether 
he will or not. He is daily sowing seed that shall 
spring up to some harvest of honor and joy, or of 
shame and sorrow. But the Christian minister 
and every Christian laborer is likened, in the 
Scripture, to a sower — who goes forth to sow, 
whose business and office-work is this — to sow 
seed. The illustration is full of interest. Let us 
trace it out. 

The dissemination pf God's truth is our great 
business — yours and mine, my brethren. 

And this divine truth, when brought to bear 
upon men, is compared, in Scripture, to a fire and 
a hammer, that breaks the flinty rock in pieces. 
This is its function — this is its office-work and aim 
— to break down the stoutest enmity of the heart. 
It is also likened to a sword that is to be wielded 
— to strike down the most violent opposer — the 
sword of the Spirit, which God, the Holy Ghost 
himself draws — and with which he cuts, even to 
the joints and marrow of the desperate foe. 

But in the hand of the Christian minister, and 



166 TEARFUL SOWING 

Christian member, this truth of God is also seed. 
And thus it is called the good seed — the incorrupti- 
ble seed, which liveth and abideth forever. Other 
seed may utterly rot in the ground, as it fairly 
ought; and some seed may germinate to corrup- 
tion ; but this seed never rots, and where it springs 
up, at length, it is always to a pure and joyous 
harvest. 

Mark, then, the divine encouragement: "He that 
goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, 
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bring- 
ing his sheaves with him." The sole condition of 
the success is, that the sower shall go forth to his 
work, bearing the precious seed, and then, he may 
go forth even weeping, for the present hardship or 
opposition or ill-success, but he shall doubtless 
come again with rejoicing, reaping his golden 
harvest. 

Look now at this truth of God as seed. 

Jesus spake a parable to this effect, and said, 
"The sower soweth the word." The seed is the 
word of God. You may notice how these divine 
truths are thrown out from the pulpit and the 
press and social conversation, as from the sower's 
hand. 

Is this to be the end of all this constant work 
of the preacher, just to pronounce formal sermons 
— just to work up thoughts into religious dis- 
courses, or to work out the high problems of di- 
vine revelation, for curious hearers, and to go on 
to-morrow as to-day, and next Sabbath as this Sab- 
bath, looking for no further results? Ask: Is it 



AND JOYFUL REAPING. 167 

the whole business of the husbandman to turn his 
mellow furrow and plant his field with grain — and 
so go on, with the same process, year after year, 
looking for no harvest? Oh no! This might be, 
if he sowed pebbles. But he has sowed seed. And, 
in its very nature, it is a germ — having life — and 
it is expected to be started into growth by all the 
system of influences into which it is cast by that 
act of the sower flinging it into the ground. 

Look at these truths of God. They are living 
germs — they are seed-grain. They are cast out 
into the minds of men in the hope of genial influ- 
ences for expanding and maturing them to a har- 
vest. Oh ! how one thought, flung into the active 
soul, has often germinated and expanded and come 
up with rank stalk and heavy crop in all the fu- 
ture life. 

And that is what we seek. And this is what 
God expressly promises: "As the rain cometh 
down and the snow from heaven, and returneth 
not thither, but watereth the earth, that it may 
give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; bo 
shall my word be, that goeth forth out of my 
mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it 
shall accomplish that which I please : and it shall 
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. that instead 
of the thorn may come up the fir-tree, and instead 
of the brier the myrtle-tree, to be to the Lord for 
a name, for an everlasting sign which shall not be 
cut off.'' This is the absolute guarantee of God. 
And this is the standing encouragement in dis- 
seminating this good word of God. So it ought 



168 TEARFUL SOWING 

to result — so every sowing ought to have its crop, 
and will somehow and sometime have it, in ben- 
efit and blessing for all eternity. 

But observe the grand condition of this success 
is, that the seed sown shall be precious seed. 

Oh! how many hands are busy sowing worth- 
less seed, that shall either not spring up or, what 
is worse, shall spring up to prolific harvests of 
corruption and perdition. How the new labor- 
ers, with seed in hand — bad seed — enter the ser- 
vice of Satan every day ! And how hard it is to 
get men, in this blessed field of the Master, men 
who will be earnest and faithful in scattering the 
good seed of the kingdom, as they go along in life 
with a view to a harvest of souls ! 

But look at this seed, — how precious ! You can 
know it only from its fruits. You may take vari- 
ous seeds — some of most poisonous plants, and 
some of richest fruits — and you may not be able to 
distinguish them. But drop them into the ground, 
where they shall be subjected to the appropriate 
influences of soil, and you shall soon know them 
from the stalk and leaf even, but surely from the 
fruit. 

Take now one of these divine truths — the great 
fact of the Gospel — the faithful, credible saying, 
so worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners. Have I 
need to prove to you how precious is this seed- 
grain of inspired truth? Have you not seen it 
where it has sprung up in a desolate field, where 
the heart was sad and the home was cheerless, 



AND JOYFUL REAPING. 169 

and it has gladdened all around — comforted the 
sorrowing, and raised the degraded and debased 
— as when you have sown some gorgeous flower- 
seed in your garden, and it has bloomed all the 
season through, to delight and bless with its beauty 
every beholder ? 

I saw, for the first time, last summer, in this 
vicinity, the evening primrose. They who had 
the beauteous thing in bloom, near the door-way 
of their dwelling, gathered the whole company 
of visitors around to see it so wondrously open 
its flowers at the instant of the sunsetting. We 
stood and watched the long yellow blossoms that 
had been folded up closely through the day — and 
strangely enough, as the sun went down, these 
blossoms on every stem seemed instinct with life. 
The folded leaves began to stir, and first one and 
then another leaf gently unfolded, until, presently, 
it flung open all its beauty to the beholder. And 
not one of the blossoms failed to do the same, 
until a dozen on the same stalk stood forth in the 
glory of this twilight resurrection. A precious 
seed, I said, is that, and I must have the joy of 
such a planting and flowering. 

So I have seen it, in a circle of worshippers, or 
in the same household. What precious seed has 
the great Gospel truth of Jesus' advent for sin- 
ners' salvation proved to be ! What peace it has 
brought forth in the bosom! What solid prin- 
ciple! What noble practice! How it has burst 
forth in beauty on a whole circle of beholders — 
a garden of delights — like the most rare and fra- 



170 TEARFUL SOWING 

grant blossoming of the tropics. How faith and 
hope and love and joy and peace and long-suffer- 
ing and gentleness and goodness and meekness 
and temperance and truth have been gathered by 
a whole household, in richest clusters, as the crop 
from this one seed. 

And so there is another precious seed, the truth 
of a divine covenant with the believer through 
Jesus Christ covering all providence — controlling 
all issues and events — numbering the very hairs 
of the head — providing for the asking and the re- 
ceiving, as by a law more fixed than that which 
moves the stars in their exactest courses. See how 
this seed, sown in the heart, springs up and yields 
a fruit of happy thoughts and rich consolations ! 

Then as nothing can happen unforeseen and un- 
ordered and unprovided for by my covenant God, 
is it not blessed at the worst ? Is it not part of 
my training for heaven, and part of my leading 
thither? And so, if the event cross my plans, do 
I want any thing for myself that my covenant 
God does not want me to have? Or do I know 
better than he what is best for me ? Is it not bet- 
ter for my own happiness and for my eternal sal- 
vation, that my poor, stumbling way be embar- 
rassed than his eternal course of love? Is it not 
better that my poor, blind will be disappointed, 
than his loving and glorious counsels? And so let 
the tribulation come, and it shall work patience, 
and the patience experience, and the experience 
hope. 

And so, finally, the truth of the resurrection and 



AND JOYFUL REAPING. 171 

eternal life is a like precious seed. Springing up 
in the dreariest bosom, it sheds joy around; it is 
fragrant with perfume that fills the air. 

Yesterday, I buried an aged widow, who first 
received me into her hospitable home a quarter 
century before, when I went out a lad to do my 
first sowing of the Gospel seed. She was one of 
my earliest parishioners in a distant city. She 
came to her grave in a full age as a shock of 
corn cometh in in his season. It was a seasonable 
death, calm and beautiful, at eighty-seven years 
of age. And her last words were — " Eternal life ! 
eternal life ! " 

That seed, planted in her mind — this truth of 
the "life eternal" — that single glorious truth let 
fall in her soul — was vitalized and expanded to a 
gracious maturity and developed in her all joy 
and triumph, in her long and happy life journey 
and in her victorious death. So you have seen it 
all through your society. And to see it spring up, 
in even a few instances, is an ample reward. 

But the text makes mention of the weeping, 
almost as if it were a condition of success. 

There are manifold occasions for tears in this 
sower's work. The promise is spoken for encour- 
agement, under all possible disappointments and 
drawbacks. As Jesus himself portrayed the sow- 
ing in his beautiful parable, you remember, it was 
only in one condition out of four, that the seed, 
precious as it all was, came to a blessed harvest. 
And yet we might hope that more than a fourth 
of all the seed sprang forth to perfection — that 



172 TEARFUL SOWING 

most of all the seed sown was dropped into the 
good ground, and only here and there a few scat- 
tering seeds fell by the wayside or upon the rock 
or among the thorns. But the manifold hindrances 
to the growth of the word in the heart and life 
might make an angel weep. 

It is hard for a minister to see the loss of his 
labor, in case of the wayside hearers. Hard to 
see a thousand birds of ill-omen, flocking round, 
to pick up the precious seed which has received 
no lodgement on that hard trodden road. Hard 
to see men, so indurated by the rush and tramp 
of business or pleasure, that you can't get them so 
much as to think of the soul. These great truths, 
most solemn and momentous, scarcely dropped be- 
fore they are gone! Men who come, and go as 
they came, from a thousand sermons, and no im- 
pression is received ! Oh ! it is that which brings 
the tears. And then it is hard, where the seed has 
even sprung up and blossomed, full of promise, to 
find, in a few short months, how it has revealed 
its rocky soil — no firm rooting — all going to stalk 
— nothing but leaves — the blossoms dropping off 
without any fruit — nothing matured and ripened 
to perfection — withered away! And then, too, to 
see the growing of the seed choked by thorns — by 
the cares of this world and by the deceitfulness of 
riches and by the lusts of other things. So much 
good seed falling on rich soil, but overrun by 
weeds and overtopped by thistles, till it can grow 
no more, but is buried under the rank mass of 
worldliness. Oh! this is matter for tears; these 



AND JOYFUL REAPING. 173 

are sights, under our daily eye, to wring the sow- 
er's heart with anguish. 

You do not see the weeping. How the evil 
tempers and evil example of some in the church 
hinder the progress of young Christians, or hin- 
der others from becoming Christians at all ! How 
we must weep over much inconsiderate conduct 
even in the best ; over mischievous principles 
broached by good men, where wrong is palliated 
by those who are set to be the promulgators and 
defenders of the right, and where all a pastor's 
efforts are paralyzed by men of standing in the 
church, who openly, in conduct or otherwise, ad- 
vocate the wrong in daily practice. 

But we are bidden to go on sowing, even though 
we weep as we go. For first, the sowing is ours 
and the weeping may be ours, but not the ger- 
minating, nor the fruit-bearing of what we sow. 
44 Paul planteth, Apollos watereth, but God giveth 
the increase." 

And this is just what God doeth and delights to 
do, as if it were by a system of natural law. The 
means are ours — the results are his. And yet, he 
will often so bless the means with the results, as 
that they shall seem to have produced them. So, 
he often honors the preaching of the word and the 
use of all Christian instrumentalities. But he has 
not required of us to make the seed grow, only to 
do the sowing faithfully, and even at self-sacrifice 
and with tearful efforts, that shall evince the ear- 
nestness and the fidelity. And he will ensure the 
gracious harvest. 



174 TEARFUL SOWING 

But we are to consider, secondly, that God does 
not bind himself to times and seasons for this 
harvest. 

It is not in the church, as it is in nature, that we 
can tell of the harvest-time from the course of the 
sun in the sky or from the season of the year. He 
reserves to himself the time for the reaping. Nay, 
it is often that one soweth and another reapeth. 

But God will have our patience tested and culti- 
vated here. And then he will have it so arranged 
that he that soweth and he that reapeth may re- 
joice together. Oh! in the other world, we shall 
see the map of human influences and destinies 
spread out in our individual cases, and it will ap- 
pear whose sowing it was from which the harvest, 
in each case, was finally reaped. And many an 
one who had waited and wept long time for re- 
sults in his ministry will be honored, at last, with 
bringing in the sheaves from his own sowing, how- 
ever long ago past; and then, if not before, that 
eternity that shall disclose all actions and all issues 
and shall trace them to their respective sources 
shall put the honor upon those to whom it is due. 
And they who, years ago, went forth sowing and 
toiled faithfully in the furrow and scattering the 
seed, but not knowing of the ultimate results, they 
shall come again, with rejoicing, and shout the 
harvest-home. Patience, Christian parents, pray 
and labor with your wayward children. u God 
giveth the increase." This is what he does — 
God giveth the increase. Patience, Sabbath-school 
teacher, plant and water. 



AND JOYFUL REAPING. 175 

And if this be so, then we remark, further, that 
present success in this work is no criterion of fidel- 
ity or of God's favor. 

What if a man sits down in his field, discouraged 
because he does not see the seed spring up at once. 
Many will give up the work, if they have not the 
immediate returns. But the husbandman waiteth 
for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long 
patience for it, until he receive the early and the 
latter rain. God's times are not ours, nor are his 
ways ours. And can we not afford to wait when 
the promise is absolute, as in the text ? Yea, the 
farmer may sow the best seed and may wait in 
vain for the crop. Nature has not supplied all 
the conditions of fertility and production. And 
hence he goes, mourning the barrenness and loss. 
But here, in Christ's service, no Christian labor 
shall ever lose its reward. It is only a question 
of time. The faithful sower shall, doubtless — 
doubtless — come again with rejoicing, with his 
arms and bosom full of the sheaves. 

There is a world beyond; and it is a world of 
wages and fruits and issues and results and recom- 
penses. If the seed has not yet sprung up, there 
it is, in the furrow, we may hope. It is sown in 
the bosom, and it is incorruptible seed. And if 
it be longer a-coming, it may be only because it 
was deeper planted or because of the nature of the 
soil. The century plant blooms for those who did 
not plant the seed. Yes ! And so there were those 
who planted that precious seed in faith, though 
they knew it should open its gorgeous flower, not 



176 TEARFUL SOWING 

for their eyes, but for others — when their heads 
were laid low in the dust. 

I met a former parishioner in the crowd of 
Broadway, last week. It had been nearly twenty 
years since I had seen him. He told me of his 
children — one dead, another in Europe, another at 
home. He grasped me by the hand as we parted 
and he said: "Ah, you will be remembered by 
your people in Brooklyn, long after your head is 
in the grave." Ah! that is wages: the like of 
which one may get every year, more or less, from 
the old field, while he gathers also from the new. 
The husbandman hath long patience for the pre- 
cious fruit of the earth — long patience for it. And 
why not we for this more precious fruit of heaven, 
when we are assured that it shall certainly come ? 

And, finally, we see it is not the ministry, alone, 
but the membership, also, to whom this sowing 
belongs. 

They who have the seed are to scatter it. There 
is no monopoly of production. You may all be 
cultivators of this gracious crop. No matter what 
discouragement or what delay or doubt or opposi- 
tion of men or hindrances of the world or of the 
devil — no matter though Satan plant tares over 
night among the wheat, which you have carefully 
sown and watered with your tears. It is God's to 
give the increase, even where Paul plants and 
Apollos waters. And therefore, every one who 
can cast a seed out into the field, is invited to 
this work. Here is the call for truth, in every 
form of dissemination, to be written, spoken, said, 



AND JOYFUL REAPING, 177 

or sung — at home or by the way — to men and to 
children — in the church and the Sabbath-school 
and the counting-room — at the table and in the 
social circle — by the formal teaching or the inci- 
dental remark — by the sober counsel or the tender 
rebuke or the word of invitation or admonition. 
Speak I I pray you, my brother ; whatever of God's 
truth you have at hand that the occasion calls for 
— that you have the opportunity to dispense — 
speak out ! for that truth has life in it — spirit and 
life — and it can not be utterly tramped out of the 
bosom. The fowl of the air may pick it up from 
the way-side, but may drop it elsewhere — may 
even drop it into a fresh furrow. And it will 
grow, ages after it has passed from your hand. 
Just as the seed deposited in the mummy's coffin 
is found, after long ages, yet instinct with life and 
incorruptible. 

Oh! ye who are out in the field of life daily, 
amidst the open furrows, where some sowing is 
all the while going on, and you are busily sowing 
some seed, whether you know it or not, whether 
you will it or not, sow this good seed of the king- 
dom, I beseech you, wherever you can. Employ 
your talents for Christ. Use your opportunities 
for Christ. Undertake work for Christ. It is no 
time for shrinking and shirking the work of the 
Master. Have you not served Satan faithfully and 
the world and self; and will you beg off from toil 
and denial in Christ's service ? Only think of the 
sheaves which you may bring home, at the great 
harvesting of the world! Even though you are 



178 TEARFUL SOWING 

obscure and without influential position in society, 
remember, God asks for the sowing and he will 
give the increase, whether it be your sowing or 
Paul's or Gabriel's or a child's or an idiot's. 

"I say to thee, do thou repeat 
To the first man thou mayst meet, 
In lane, highway or open street, 
That he and we and all men move 
Under a canopy of love, 
As broad as the blue sky above." 

And then let no one say that this is work which 
is too hard. 

"A grain of corn an infant's hand 
May plant upon an inch of land, 
Whence twenty stalks may spring and yield 
Enough to stock a little field. 
The harvest of that field might then 
Be multiplied to ten times ten, 
Which sown, thrice more, would furnish bread 
Wherewith an army might be fed." 

And herein is the strong attraction of this blessed 
work. Who can trace out its interminable issues ? 
Who can tell the history of one of these seeds ! It 
is the infinite development that gives it a charm. 
It can never die out — can never utterly fail — can 
never cease to grow and multiply its happy results, 
forever and ever. It is not measured, in its blessed 
product, by the strength of the muscle that sows it, 
nor by the power of the intellect, nor by the age or 
size of the sower, nor by the experience in the sow- 
ing. You can do it daily, hourly, and not tire. 
All the conditions and influences requisite for the 



AND JOYFUL REAPING. 179 

hundred-fold product are with God. And the ab- 
solute promise is ours. All that is asked is the 
earnest act, such as will express itself often, in the 
tear-drop of anxiety that goes along with the seed 
into the ground; and then, be sure, all your labor 
shall be more than recompensed with the rich har- 
vesting — and all the weeping shall be more than 
repaid by the reaping. 

And, , my brethren, work while the day lasts ! 
The time is short. Jesus wept at the grave of 
Lazarus, perhaps because that faithful disciple 
was lost to the town of Bethany — because his 
labors of Christian love in that dear household 
and in that whole community were ended — be- 
cause one of his few faithful followers had gone to 
the grave and the narrow house had closed upon 
all his influence in that day of weakness and dark- 
ness. Think how every day shortens your oppor- 
tunities ! If you want the golden sheaves in your 
arms and bosom, you must sow the good seed. 
You shall reap what you sow. 

"And beyond the sowing and the reaping, 
Beyond the sighing and the weeping, 
_ We shall be soon." 



XL 

CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in 
much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." — 
Luke xvi. 10. 

This life is properly called probationary. Though 
there is a sense in which all the race had their trial 
in their Head and Kepresentative, there is another 
and important sense in which each man is put on 
trial for himself all through life. It is so by the 
very necessity of things. 

In human relations it is universally recognized. 
Every man stands at his post on trial for higher 
and more responsible positions which he may oc- 
cupy, if he be found faithful in this. The whole 
course of human responsibility is subject to this 
law. The boy who is true to the claims of boy- 
hood — who is faithful in the household and faithful 
in the school — is the boy to be advanced to all the 
graver trusts of manhood. And so the good son is 
the one to be a good husband and a good father — 
and a good householder and a good citizen and a 
good Christian. While the converse is held to be 
equally true — that the bad boy comes to be fit for 
no worthy and honorable post in society. And so 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 181 

the merchant's clerk is put upon his trial; as he 
conducts himself equal to his task — faithful in his 
sphere — so he is a candidate for the advanced po- 
sitions of business, proves himself fit to take the 
headship and to become a master in his calling. 

And so every calling is, by the divine constitu- 
tion, probationary. The man is subjected to tests 
such as belong to his sphere of action, according 
to which he is adjudged faithful or not. And he 
is everywhere and every hour the candidate for 
promotion or disgrace. Fidelity must elevate him, 
unfaithfulness must degrade and sink him. 

And this is so, by a necessary constitution, be- 
cause, it is everywhere recognized that principles 
must decide men's character. For, in the long 
run, principles control men's conduct — good prin- 
ciples or bad — and the aim of all practical tests in 
society is just to find out by what principles a 
man's living is swayed, and according to what 
rules he lives and acts. 

It is by a system of patient inductions that 
you arrive at the law of a man's conduct. He 
is watched on every side. Men measure him and 
weigh him ; they take his aims and bearings ; they 
study his actions in ever varying circumstances; 
and so, at length, they come to their opinion of 
him — believing all the while that his actions are 
moulded by a certain law, and that, in these daily 
particulars, his whole self is acted out. 

The text gives us the formula of divine inspira- 
tion to this same effect. 

The parable of the unjust steward is a parable 



182 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

spoken for thousands of cases in every age of the 
world. How a man, in a most responsible posi- 
tion, may utterly betray his trust and make awful 
shipwreck of the confidence reposed in him ; how, 
under some special pressure of temptation or trial, 
he may act himself out and develop hidden iniqui- 
ties which show his unfitness for any responsible 
station — this is the picture that has a thousand 
forms of illustration and, like the kaleidoscope, with 
the same elements, turns up in every varying as- 
pect of human demoralization. 

The parable is, that this man was accused to 
his master of wasting his goods. It is not alleged 
that he had actually done it — only that he was ac- 
cused of having done it. The parable will show 
us how he will demean himself under the accusa- 
tion. You may be sure he will show himself the 
guilty man that he is, by following his thieving 
instincts and even propagating his fraud by mak- 
ing his lord's debtors accomplices with himself in 
the roguery. The man who could waste his mas- 
ter's goods was the man who could so unscrupu- 
lously go on to sacrifice his master's claims, so as 
to promote his own selfish interests. And hence 
the great Teacher, in the spirit of the profoundest 
philosophy, states it as in the text — "He that is 
is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in 
much, and he that is unjust in the least is unjust 
also in much." 

Principle, my hearers — principle— this is the de- 
mand of society, and it is the demand of Christ. 
The advertisement in politics, in business, in the 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 183 

household, in the church, is for men of principle — 
high, uniform, steady, consistent principle. 

There are men who are said to be men of no 
principle — who are driven by every wind, who 
are in no sense reliable, who can not be depended 
upon for any firm, unflinching adherence to truth 
and rectitude in all circumstances, and whatever 
be the temptation or opposition they may meet — 
men of straw — the mere chaff of society — drifting 
with the breeze, the light and empty stuff, the 
mere refuse and stubble, the dead wood of the 
vineyard, that is fit only to be under foot and 
to be burned — men of present impulse, who go 
according to the wind and wave of the hour, who 
are not serious enough in their living to have 
adopted any fixed laws for the regulation of their 
conduct, who have an easy way with their con- 
sciences, and who can do any thing that they 
may find a present, pressing motive for doing; 
who will be unfaithful whenever they think they 
can be so with advantage and with impunity; 
men who find their justification with themselves 
in the fact that others do likewise, and that it is, 
in a sort, necessary to be unprincipled if one would 
do business or would make money. 

Such men may be said to have principle, but 
their principle is a low, selfish interest. They may 
be said to have even fixed principles of dishonesty 
and iniquity. They have deliberately adopted for 
their living principles of falsity and corruption, 
of lying and overreaching in trade, and of debase- 
ment in morals. Moral principle of such soft text- 



184 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

Tire is easily eaten out by slow degrees — -just as 
I have seen in oriental houses, where the worm 
stealthily perforates the soft wood of the rafters 
and so completely riddles it, that the fabric comes 
tumbling down over your head. And therefore, 
the cedar of Lebanon was so valuable for the tim- 
bers of the temple because the worms would not 
infest that highly aromatic wood. 

Give me a true Christian, whose morals are based 
upon Christ and Christianity, and I know he is of 
the right stuff. The men who are the rafters in 
our social and political structures ought to be 
the cedar-of-Lebanon men, of such timber as God's 
Temple is built of, which the worms of corruption 
can not perforate, with an aroma such as worms 
can not bear. 

And the text asserts the law of men's devel- 
opment. 

This life is a life of principles, where the small- 
est particulars disclose the law of operation. We 
speak in nature of a principle of gravitation. And 
we know that it shows itself in the tiniest atoms 
as well as in the massive worlds. It was, perhaps, 
the falling of an apple from a tree that led the 
great philosopher to the discovery of the law by 
which the vast systems of the starry universe are 
held in their courses. It was the flying of a kite 
which unveiled to another philosopher the princi- 
ple of electricity. And I have seen, in the great 
cathedral at Pisa, where Galileo, by the swinging 
of the chandelier from the high vaulted roof, dis- 
covered the principle of the earth's rotation. And 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 185 

it is just because a great law in nature must take 
hold of minutest particulars and so must prove 
itself to be a law, that the smallest items have 
served for the discovery of grandest principles in 
the material universe. 

And so it is uttered here of men, by the Great 
Searcher of hearts, that you may discover their 
principles of action by the merest minutiae of life 
— "He that is faithful in that which is least is 
faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in 
the least, is unjust also in much." That departure 
from duty is the leak in the ship's side that makes 
the wreck — it is the breaking of the link in the 
golden chain that binds the soul to truth and, honor 
and to God. The eye of the needle is broken, the 
blade of the knife — therefore it is that offending 
in one point is guiltiness of all. 

Apply this law to our higher relations and see 
in the first place how, if one have religious principle 
it ivill take hold of smallest particulars. 

How few can appreciate the Gospel precept that 
makes our religion take hold of our eating and 
drinking and of whatsoever we do, as all to be 
done to the glory of God! God has not so writ- 
ten his law as to have a precept for every item of 
a man's living. The Decalogue has comprised all 
the commandments in ten. The whole moral code 
for every possible relation and condition of life is 
written on two tables, and in half a score of com- 
mands. And these all are further reduced to two 
great commandments and these two to one — and 
this one to one word — and this one ivord to one syl- 



186 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

lable and that one syllable is Love! And in this 
sense, as God is a unit, so God has but one prin- 
ciple of all his conduct. And men are to have the 
same unity, and to be swayed by the same fixed, 
undeviating law which shall comprehend and con- 
trol all their actions. 

Take the philosophical idea of God and according 
to this, he is simply the Great First Cause and Last 
End of all things — the cold and cheerless origina- 
tor of all material things, the prime and ultimate 
idea that is necessary to a beginning of all created 
objects, far back of all the starry universe, before 
all systems of worlds. And that is merely a for- 
mal principle of creatorship, to solve the mystery 
of nature and to answer to the questionings of 
reason, as to the origin and genesis of all things. 
But there is no light here upon personal and moral 
relations. 

Take the theological idea of God and it is "God 
as a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in 
his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, good- 
ness and truth." And nothing less could make out 
his description ; and these are his attributes which 
go to define his glorious essence and to describe 
his unsearchable being, as we speak of him and 
set him forth to one another, so that no point of 
his relations shall be left out. But when the Gos- 
pel presents God in his practical relations to us, as 
he is revealed in grace for our salvation, it is just 
one word that expresses it all, because it is just one 
principle that operates in all the details of his re- 
deeming works and ways — and that word is love. 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 187 

And so it is the same word which expresses the 
whole commandment for men, because, this one 
high principle must operate in all the details of 
Christian living and must take hold of all the 
minutiae of life. 

Just as in the material world, if you could sur- 
vey at a glance all the forces in operation every- 
where — whether animal or mechanical or physical 
— all are traceable to the power emanating from 
the sun. The force of the muscle that wields the 
hammer or that moves the pen, and the force of 
the steam that drives the locomotive or the ocean 
vessel, and the force of the avalanche that tears 
the mountain sides — all forces from the volcano 
and the cataract and the tornado down to all the 
minor industries, in all the work and walk of life, 
they have all but one source of all their power 
and that is the sun! And so it is this sun-force 
in morals, which we call love, that accounts for 
all true Christian living. In other aspects, as not 
merely an attribute but a trait of character, and a 
working power in the moral world, you may call 
it fidelity. And this is the word in the text for 
meeting God's high demand — a faithfulness that 
springs from Christian faith and operates in all 
the domain of human conduct. 

Take now this Christian faithfulness. I say that 
true faithfulness must have its ground and essence 
in the Christian faith. Any principle of any lower 
origin must resolve itself into some of the world's 
poor maxims as that " Honesty is the best policy" 
— that is, that a man must be honest if, on the 



188 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

long run, he would succeed in life, and that this 
proverb is the finding of human observation and 
experience — the verdict of soundest worldly philos- 
ophy—that one had better practice honesty than 
not, out of mere policy, and for his own selfish 
interest — for his standing in the community, for 
his peace of mind, for his success in life, and for 
his comfort in death. But this is not faithfulness, 
in the higher sense. One may be unfaithful with- 
out being pronounced dishonest, as the world goes, 
and so he may be honest — no thief, no defaulter — 
yet without being faithful. But when you come to 
a fidelity which is actuated by a strong Christian 
faith which credits these Scriptures in all their ful- 
ness, embraces these Christian promises, entertains 
these Christian hopes, takes firm hold of eternal 
realities, as here revealed, communes with God, 
takes counsel of Jesus Christ, and is under habitual 
influence of the powers of the world to come — that 
is a Christian fidelity which reaches the highest 
idea of human faithfulness, and takes hold of all 
the details of living. That is the high quality that 
makes a truly faithful man. 

I know that Satan is strong, that his temptations 
are sharp and severe, that a man may sometimes 
find himself struck, as by a tornado of his power, 
or be skilfully lassoed by his arts; I know that he 
beguiled Eve through his subtlety. But I know 
that this is the very weighty motive for binding 
ourselves fast, by Christian principle and habit, 
and for throwing ourselves into the arms of divine 
power and grace that alone can overthrow Satan 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 189 

and his hosts. Show me the man who adopts this 
Christian method of living, and I know he is trusty 
in all the relations of life. 

Do you not see that men had rather employ for 
a confidential clerk, or for any office of trust, one 
who is professedly and manifestly a Christian ; and 
when you can say of a man that he has Christian 
principle, you have in a word passed the highest 
encomium upon his character and living ? One 
standard of all his conduct, one single rule of all 
his life, one single eye to his great aim and object, 
one thing to do, one cause to serve, one pattern to 
imitate, and that, the highest, purest possible; one 
Christ-like career to run, and hence one consistent, 
unwavering Christian course of duty. This prin- 
ciple of loyalty to Christ, call it what you will — 
love, faithfulness — this is Christian principle, and 
Jesus himself bears on his vesture the name Faith- 
ful and True. 

Consider now, further, how the littles in life illus- 
trate principle. 

Two hundred years ago, when Sir Christopher 
Wren was building Saint Paul's Cathedral in Lon- 
don, a countryman came to him, seeking employ- 
ment in wood-carving. The great architect asked 
him what he had been used to carve. The man 
confused and trembling answered that he had been 
used to carve troughs. "Troughs! " said Sir Chris- 
topher, "then carve me a group of swine, and bring 
it here this day week." True to the appointment, 
the man came with his carving and was at once 
engaged for seven years as wood-carver on that 



190 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

magnificent edifice. Faithful in littles his faithful- 
ness in much Avas inferred. If the great law of at- 
traction did not bind together the minutest atoms, 
it could not bind together the planets. So, if the 
law of Christian love and of Christian loyalty does 
not act in minor particulars, it can not act as a law 
at all. 

See how Christianity comes every day out of the 
secret closet and steps forth from those concealed 
and private acts of communion with God to all 
the thousand cares and labors of the day. See 
how personal religion is manifested by the daily 
tempers in manifold details ; how it shows itself in 
the tender and gentle offices of home, before it 
goes out into business; and how along the street 
it puts forth the hand of charity and. stoops with 
benefaction to the hut of poverty ; drops a word of 
Christian counsel to the erring and seeks to re- 
claim the wanderer by some kindly act, all in a 
way to show the ruling passion of Christian love. 

When Christ entered on his ministry and began 
by expounding to men the law- of Sinai, he gave as 
a wonderful summary of it all, as a precept and 
rule of living for all, that Golden Rule that has 
been the admiration of all the world, "As ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them 
likewise, for this is the law and prophets." 
• But his Gospel reveals a new commandment What 
is it? Is it to love others as we would have them 
love us? No! To love others as they love us? 
No! To love others as we love ourselves? No! 
To love others as ice love Christ? No! But to 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 191 

love others as Christ has loyed us. And so it is that 
faith in Christ takes hold of the precious, gracious 
fact of his love to us, and so it works out the Chris- 
tian faithfulness in all the relations, from the least 
even to the greatest ; and so love to Christ becomes 
love to one another, and resolves itself into that 
manifold love which runs through all society. And 
so it is that, as in the golden candlestick of Zecha- 
riah, the oil in the bowl at the top and crown of 
the whole is supplied by the living olive-trees on 
either hand, and so runs down through all the 
seven pipes and branches for the living illumina- 
tion of the world. 

Then consider further, how character acts itself 
out most naturally and freely in little things. 

No man can be faithless in little and faithful in 
much. No ! It is just when men are off their 
guard, unconstrained by their surroundings, that 
you may see their real selves. What they do 
apart from special impulse, and only by the ne- 
cessity of their governing principle, that exhibits 
them in their true light. Therefore it is that se- 
cret prayer and private study of God's word are 
held to be so evidential of Christian sincerity. He 
that seeth in secret will reward such openly, and 
the reward shall sit like a crown upon the head, 
like a halo on the brow. If it be only out of 
doors, or of Sundays, that a man is religious, you 
know that there is nothing in all that which may 
not be explained by a cold, heartless, selfish policy. 
But when one is found to be habitually set upon 
religious living, volunteering Christian work, seek- 



192 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

ing out Christian service; when his thoughts mani- 
festly take that direction, and casual words dropped 
in conversation show it, and the constant likings 
and leanings evince it; and when Christian duty 
is evidently a matter of taste and not of task; and 
when an ever-present law of Christian action sways 
the whole man, on small occasions as well as on 
great ones, in the social assembly as well as on 
the Sabbath ; and when on week-days, he is found 
illustrating, by his walk, the Christian ideal that 
is set forth in the sanctuary, then you know that 
he may be relied on as a Christian man. You may 
count on his hearty support for all that is good — 
without shirking, without shrinking, without vacil- 
lation, without that gross and palpable inconsist- 
ency which makes some men's record a mere yes 
and no, all the way through life ! 

And then consider, further, that life is made up 
of the littles. 

As these breaths and pulsations make up the 
physical life, so our Christian living must be shown 
in detail, if at all. Life is too short to wait for the 
rare and special tests which might seem, in them- 
selves, so conclusive. You must put this and that 
together, and all these minute items prove the 
principle and law of living. Like the lines and 
pages of a book, they are the lines and chapters 
and paragraphs of life — the words and sentences 
by which we must read a man and which make up 
his record. 

And then a consistent, steadfast aim, in all tilings, 
makes the little to become so much. To one who 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 193 

has no such principled object of living, these items 
seem trifles. But every fabric of the garments that 
you wear must be woven with particular threads, 
and that fabric goes upon you as your clothing or 
habit And these threads of life become habits by 
this principle. 

So the weaver, after a pattern with his steady 
aim in view, brings his threads into their beautiful 
combination, delicate and expressive, like the Gob- 
elin tapestry, as if from the pencil of the painter. 
And so I have seen the oriole, with an eye to the 
structure of her nest, gathering up the hairs and 
threads from the rubbish, and skilfully sewing 
them into the bag that she also suspends from 
the bough as her domicile for the little ones. 

And then the little becomes much by natural and 
necessary development. 

The man who is unjust in the least is unjust also 
in much, because it leads to this, because he is rap- 
idly advancing to that further stage of progress. 
The waster becomes the embezzler, and the pil- 
ferer becomes the robber, and the robber becomes 
the highwayman, and the highwayman plies his 
fiendish art till he can even set the trap to throw 
the midnight train off the rail, with its load of 
human freight, and then, can cruelly file off from 
the finger of a dying woman in the wreck the dia- 
mond ring which was the token of wedded love. 

The sentiment of our Lord in the text, so pro- 
foundly illustrated by the parable of the unjust 
steward, is that a lofty Christian principle is what 
is called for in life as the only safeguard of a man 
13 



194 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

in temptation, the only steady, satisfactory, propel- 
ling power of a man's living, and the pledge of an 
eternal future. Christ calls for faithful men, loyal 
to his cause and crown and covenant; at all times 
faithful, through evil report and through good re- 
port ; faithful under burdens — bearing crosses, en- 
during sacrifices — or in the giddy whirl of position 
and prosperity faithful, and faithful through and 
through ! 

And he suggests to us all the solemn truth that 
this life is tentative, experimental and formative, 
in reference to the life hereafter ; that here, we are 
daily subjected to testing processes that shall dis- 
cover what we are, and how we shall be found 
worthy or unworthy of the higher trusts and of- 
fices of the heavenly world. And it is only as a 
man is found possessed of Christian principle, that 
he can be advanced and promoted to the higher 
positions beyond, where Christ is head. All this 
earthly stewardship, all these business operations, 
all this buying and selling and contracting and 
executing is only a means of proving men by the 
lower and secular responsibilities, finding out their 
true character and their real principles, and decid- 
ing whether they shall be entrusted with the riches 
of that higher sphere. And this is the question, as 
Christ powerfully puts it, "If ye have not been 
faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall 
commit to your trust the true riches?" If here, on 
trial as stewards of that which is sordid and per- 
ishing, you have utterly failed, have wasted God's 
goods, or have returned no proper account to God, 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 195 

then how could you expect a position of trust in 
that upper court and kingdom? "And if ye have 
not been faithful in that which is another man's, 
who shall give you that which is your own." If 
not faithful as stewards, how shall you be made 
lords of the household? If not faithful as agents, 
who shall make you principals? If, with these 
small sums committed to your charge, you have 
wasted the Master's goods and for purposes of self- 
emolument have made unfair alliances and com- 
binations and unjust returns; if you betray an 
utter lack of Christian principle in your use of the 
worldly means entrusted to you, who shall commit 
to your trust the true riches, the immense estates 
and ample treasures of the heavenly world? If 
you are faithful only as between man and man, 
and not as between man and God, that is being 
faithful to the employees and not to the employer. 
This is a life of germs and rudiments. This train- 
ing is elementary. We are here at school. Every 
day's lessons are given us in the culture of the soul 
for the cultus or worship of eternity. The little, 
even here, advances to much. The juvenile piety 
soon becomes manly, stalwart, heroic, and passes 
on to glory for nobler deeds and honors. We are 
here learning the alphabet and spelling out the 
syllables of that language which we are to speak, 
and in which we are to read God's works and ways 
forever. Every man is training in that dialect in 
which he shall hold converse in all eternity. The 
street we travel here up to the edge of the river is 
continued on the other side the same street, and 



196 CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE. 

is called there by the same name forever and for- 
ever. As we travel here so shall we journey there 
to all eternity. 

It is fit that temptations should come upon us in 
this life; it is fit that they should assail us with 
tremendous power; and in the midst of their hot- 
test, most fiery darts, there is but one safe, infal- 
lible recourse, and that is indicated in the prayer 
put into our mouths by the Master himself — " Lead 
us not into temptation," but lead us out of it — " de- 
liver us from the evil." 

My hearers, the great investigation is coming on, 
and for each of us. And who, then, is that faith- 
ful and wise steward whom his lord shall make 
ruler over all that he hath? Oh! is there no wor- 
thy ambition for the dignities and preferments and 
emoluments of the eternal world ? Every thought 
and action passes into the account for that great 
day. Amidst the terrors and glories of the judg- 
ment-seat, who can imagine the joy of the man to 
whom the Judge shall say — " Because thou hast 
been faithful in a very little, en a very little, have 
thou authority over ten cities ! " 



XII. 

UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

"In every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in 
Christ Jesus concerning you." — I Thess. v. 18. 

The religion of Christ proposes to inspire men 
with a sentiment of liveliest gratitude, that so it 
may incite them to a life of loftiest praise. It 
makes it our first and highest duty to be thank- 
ful, and thus it provides directly for our highest 
happiness. It sets before us the most abounding 
incentives to thanksgiving. And who does not 
know that praise is pleasant and comely — that the 
spirit of praise is the spirit of joyfulness ? 

This universal thanksgiving is the will of God 
in Christ Jesus concerning us — a secret found out 
by few. The will of God seems to most to be 
harsh and repulsive — only a severe decree or an 
inexorable demand for an obedience which is un- 
natural and irksome ; only a rigorous exaction of 
duty under the threatening of a swift -coming 
judgment. 

But properly understood, the will of God is not 
simply law, but Gospel also. It is indeed the rev- 
elation of law in order to the appreciation of the 
Gospel. It is not simply the absolute will of God 



198 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

which, is revealed — it is good-will to men. It is 
the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us; 
and that will is, that we shall exercise an habitual 
thankfulness, that Ave shall live under the constant 
inspiration of gratitude, that our lives shall be one 
anthem of praise, that every relation in which God 
stands to us and in which we stand to God shall 
provoke our thanks, and that by every new com- 
mandment we shall be put under new obligation 
of thanksgiving. This is what the religion of 
Christ contemplates for us. 

This appears, first, from the light in which God 
is presented to us as the Author of our being. 

A personal God and not any dumb idol of the 
heathen claims our praise as our Creator — not any 
impersonal principle of creative energy, not any 
abstract law of nature, not any mere idea of de- 
velopment. 

Pity upon the poor sceptic who argues out his 
own creation from some dumb theory of matter, 
and tries to find the origin and source of his be- 
ing in the lower animal tribes; who would attrib- 
ute the race of mankind to a slow development 
from the race of fishes and of beasts, instead of a 
development of God's plan in creation, working 
up from the lower to the higher. WTiom has he 
to thank for his existence ? An idea ! A theory ! 
An abstraction ! A law of nature ! But no God ! 
The astronomer Lalande declared that he had 
searched through the heavens with his telescope 
and had not found God: as though God were a 
material object, like a star, to be found with a tele- 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 199 

scope. This is the madness and mockery of the 
false science, while the true science everywhere 
finds God in his works. The fool hath said in his 
heart— " No God." 

Blank materialism and atheism, cheerless and 
black as midnight, comes into popular favor, just 
from an impatience of these gracious restraints' 
which the religion of Christ imposes upon us; just 
from a hatred of being beholden even to God or 
of being bound even to thanksgiving, under a 
sense of personal favor at his hands. 

But this plan of God, to put us upon a life of 
thanksgiving, appears further, in the fact that our 
creation is represented as the work of Jesus Christ. 
Not the absolute idea of Godhead as a great spirit 
of the Indian, or the abstract Divinity as a su- 
preme Power in the world of matter, but the sec- 
ond Person of the Blessed Trinity — this Logos, 
Theanthropos, God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
We are referred to him who hath redeemed us, . 
as the Personal Agent in giving us being. And 
then it is our glory, not so much that we were not 
made brutes, as that our Maker is allied to us in 
our humanity — allied to us even in nature, as him- 
self the model after which we were formed; and 
then coming himself to be formed in our human 
image. And here we find that there was, from all 
eternity, an ideal of manhood in the Godhead, after 
whose image man was made. The Godhead aim- 
ing to express itself in manhood and man, in his 
creation, thus made to foreshadow and herald forth 
the God-man ! 



200 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

And then even more than this, we get the idea 
of God's Fatherhood, not from his absolute Creator- 
ship so much as from the Sonship of him by whom 
we are created — in whose image we are made and 
through whose Sonship we are made sons. And 
so our existence is announced as having come to 
us from the very same hands which were pierced 
for our redemption by the nails of the cross. Oh 
what a cheering revelation is this, that he hath 
created all things by Jesus Christ! Then our orig- 
inal creation from the dust is associated closely 
with the incarnation at Bethlehem and with this 
new creation in which we are recreated in Christ 
Jesus unto good works. And so every pulsation 
of our heart is commissioned to speak his praise as 
the Author of our being, and of our redeemed and 
glorified being, here and hereafter. 

And this principle is still further apparent from 
the plan of God in providence and grace, always 
to put us under Gospel obligations. 

This is indeed the meaning of those sacred, gra- 
cious ties by which we are held fast to God in 
Christ. They are Christian obligations — bonds of 
gratitude — all having their basis in the work of 
Jesus Christ, accomplished for us in a suffering 
life and a shameful death and a glorious resurrec- 
tion. And though the natural heart chafes under 
these Gospel commandments, as a restraint to car- 
nal appetites, they are simply calls to grateful re- 
membrance of Jesus. There is no providential fa- 
vor we receive, not even our breath nor our daily 
bread, but we are taught to accept it as from the 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 201 

very hand of our covenant Lord and Saviour — the 
God-man. And so there is no single duty which 
we are commanded to discharge under the Gospel, 
but is enjoined upon us in the very same strain as 
his dying command to sit around his table. This 
do, and this, and this, in remembrance of me ! 

Properly understood then, every duty is to be 
entered upon and performed in the spirit of grate- 
ful song and in thankful remembrance of his death 
for us. We are bidden to go out to our day's toil 
and even to the day's burdens and hardships, sing- 
ing! For these daily obligations are only the gold- 
en cords by which he would bind us fast and faster 
to himself. 

Enclosed within them all is the historic thread 
of his sorrow and self-sacrifice for us, calling for 
some poor requital. And Christian duty is meant 
to be the sacrifice of praise to God, continually, 
w^here, instead of smoking lambs or wreathing in- 
cense, is the volume of hearty thanks to God, 
which these only symbolized — expressed, not only 
in words, but in works. 

We have come to use the word " sacrifice" as 
synonymous with hardship and loss. But this is 
only a confession of our reluctance in God's service. 

It is the sacrifice of praise. Hence it is that the 
whole commandment is fulfilled by love. It could 
not be expressed by any specific deed or catalogue 
of deeds ; but it is expressed by one glowing affec- 
tion of the soul — all inclusive — comprehending all 
that is to be felt and all that is to be done, where 
the love finds manifold expression in action. It 



202 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

is the well-spring of a voluntary and cordial obedi- 
ence. And so it is love always answering to love. 
Even the ten commandments of Sinai are answered 
to by love. For love is personal and binds us to 
the object, which is God himself, and leads to 
manifold utterances in the lips and in the life. 
No other gods to acknowledge, no idols to wor- 
ship, no profanation of God's name to indulge, 
and the tender and devout remembrance of him 
culminating in his own day. These are only ex- 
pressions of love. And so Ave may conceive of 
God, in all his laws, as only putting us upon the 
platform of praise and only binding us to love 
himself, as he is revealed in his law — to thank 
and bless his name in all our living, and all the 
while putting a new song into our mouths, even 
praise to our God. 

And this same idea is further apparent if we 
consider what he plans for us in the new nature. 

When he transforms us, when he works with- 
in us a new heart and new spirit, it is mostly a 
heartiness of thankful service and a spirit and 
temper of thanksgiving in all our lives, to which 
we are introduced. The new eye to see is an 
eye for the beautiful in God's character, word and 
works — beholding loveliness in it all, and ground 
for gratulation in it all, and call for praise in it 
all. And the Christian spirit is therefore, mainly, 
a spirit of thankfulness which is, first of all, a con- 
fession of dependence and, next, an expression of 
loving obedience. The exercises of the new na- 
ture are, therefore, the happy responses of the 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 203 

heart to Christ, the glad and grateful recognition 
of his claims, the cheerful admiration of Jesus in 
the Scriptures and in nature and in all that he is 
and does, the jubilant testimonies to his faithful- 
ness, the loving expressions of gratitude to him in 
all the life. 

And still further, this plan and principle of the 
religion of Christ, to inspire us with thanksgiving, 
must be apparent from the provision made for us 
by Christ's finished work. 

That heritage of joy hereafter is everywhere de- 
picted for us in the Scriptures as a stimulant to 
every blissful expectation. The bounding heart, 
under its deepest sorrows or cares, is bidden to 
rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whom we have now received the atonement. And 
we are animated by a joy unspeakable and full of 
glory, receiving the end of our faith, even the 
salvation of our souls. Through all the darkness 
and midnight of the world's troubles, this ineffable 
glory from the other side beams upon us — where 
all is joy and all is peace — where there is no voice 
but that of song, because there is no sentiment but 
that of thankfulness and no aim but that of a 
loving devotion for all eternity. Out of the depths 
of poverty, on the hardest cot of straw, and suf- 
fering the agony of disease on the brink of disso- 
lution, the poor believer is " begotten again unto 
a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and 
undefiled." 

There, in that blest estate, the occupation is 



204 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

praise, the duty is praise, and the law of the so- 
ciety is praise, and the atmosphere of the place is 
praise — songs of everlasting joy are on the heads 
of the ransomed throng. And the highest concep- 
tion of heaven, as a state of blessedness, is this: 
that it is an estate of happy fellowship with God 
and happy, grateful devotion to God forever. 

And God's aim for each of us in Christ Jesus — 
his thought of love for us in Christ is, that we 
shall be happy in him in the giving of thanks to 
him, so that he shall receive our ascriptions of 
praise eternally, making him most blessed in the 
blessings we ascribe'to him, for blessings bestowed 
upon us. And there, in the retrospect of our earth- 
ly career, we shall forever praise him for all the 
way in which he has led us to glory. 

But there is a second point in the text and 
equally involved in this religion of Christ. It is 
that in every thing we are to give thanks ; for this 
thing that occurs to us in providence, whatever 
it be, is the will of God in Christ Jesus concern- 
ing us. 

It is easy to glory in prosperity; but it is no 
easy thing to glory in tribulation and to glory in 
it just for being able to see through it to the glory 
which it works out. It is not easy for us to believe 
that God has constant thoughts respecting us — 
has even a plan for each of us — a perfect plan for 
us to follow out, if we will ; a plan comprising all 
our lot in life. But it is even so. 

He said to Cyrus, when he commissioned him as 
the deliverer of his-people from Babylon: "I have 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 205 

girded thee, though thou hast not known me." 
He meant, that all the steps by which that great 
leader of his people out of captivity had been him- 
self led by God, were just in order to that result, 
so glorious and triumphant, though the man was 
most unconscious of it all. 

Who doubts that Jesus traversed the other side 
of Jordan and came to Jericho with an eye to heal 
the blind men there, and to convert Zaccheus the 
publican there ? Who doubts that, just as the sun 
courses along his path in the sky, to lighten differ- 
ent hemispheres and to gladden different homes 
and even to pour his soft beams upon the cottage, 
the most humble garden plot, and to warm and 
bless the tiniest wild flower of the prairie, so Jesus 
trod the borders of Tyre and Sidon to seek out that 
Syrophenician woman, and came thirsting, at noon- 
time, to the well of Jacob, to meet that very woman 
of Samaria there? Who doubts that God's great 
mind teems with thoughts about you and me — 
with his plans for you and me — and that his plan 
of grace is comprehensive of all our cases and cir- 
cumstances ? Oh ! if God could make any mis- 
take; if he could ever forget, or fail, or falter; if 
any person or item in his domain of creatures 
could escape his notice or elude his control; if he 
did not literally preserve and govern all his crea- 
tures and all their actions ; if it were not literally 
true that every hair of our head is numbered, that 
a sparrow does not fall to the ground by the stone 
or arrow of the heedless boy without our Father, 
then how would our ground of confidence and con- 



206 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

solation be utterly swept away from us, amidst all 
this turmoil of life ? 

But observe, first, the whole scheme of providence 
is redemptive. 

The history of the world is the history of re- 
demption. The history of providence, as it em- 
braces all individuals and nations from the begin- 
ning, is the history of God's redeeming plan. And 
providence, in all its amazing scheme and struct- 
ure, has just one grand idea — one focus for all its 
scattered beams, one nucleus around which all its 
events beautifully crystallize — and that is God's 
idea of redemption by Christ Jesus. If this be 
so, then no event, whether public or private, so- 
cial or personal, but is more or less directly or 
remotely within this broad circumference. Prov- 
idence, in all its dealings with you and me, is 
redemptive. 

Your own experience has possibly taught you 
to say of this or that dark event in your history 
— "It is best" — on the bare principle that what- 
ever befalls us will somehow eventuate well; or 
out of a determination to keep up heart, and take 
things as they come in a stoical indifference; or 
even out of a disposition to hope at least for some 
good result which may possibly come out of the 
darkness. But here is an enlightened, intelligent 
and, above all, grateful view to be taken of every 
affliction, great or small, that this particular thing, 
hard as it is to bear, is the will of God in Christ 
Jesus concerning you. 

First, that it is willed by God. No accident, 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 207 

no irresponsible fate, no mere craft or malice of 
man, no uncontrolled spite of Satan, but God's par- 
ticular intent. 

And second, that it is liis intent in Christ Jesus, 
comprised within his plan of grace — not there- 
fore any severity, not in mere judgment, but as 
belonging to the scheme of grace and salvation 
by Christ Jesus. 

And thirdly, that it is his plan concerning you, 
personally, as a link in the golden chain of your 
salvation, as a direct and individual provision of 
grace for your very self. 

Ah! here lies the secret of rejoicing in tribula- 
tion, of glorying jn infirmities, of taking joyfully 
the spoiling of one's goods for Christ, and of dis- 
daining a mere earthly deliverance. It is just from 
understanding this divine philosophy by which the 
tribulation works — works patience and experience 
— until the blessed result is an animated and tri- 
umphant Christian hope, brightened by contrast 
with all the deepest darkness. It is just by learn- 
ing how the personal weakness becomes an occa- 
sion for the power of Christ to rest upon the 
soul, and how the spoiling of one's earthly goods 
and the lack of an earthly deliverance may give 
sharper relish for the enduring substance beyond. 
It is just from apprehending the divine policy 
of advancing our personal salvation by all these 
means and agencies which, to the sufferer, may 
seem hard and inscrutable, but which, in God's 
view, are the most effective methods of working 
out our redemption. 



208 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

I have seen the sailor full of glee at the burst- 
ing of a storm upon his vessel, while the timid 
passengers shrank away and shrieked in terror. 
He knew the course of the gale, how it would 
drive his vessel into port, and how he had only 
to climb the mast-head, take in his canvas to bear 
the storm, and trim his craft, so as to outride the 
gale; knowing that even though it were midnight, 
and the scene all dreary, and the howling tempest 
fearful to the inexperienced, he should find him- 
self, at morning, safely in port, even though he 
should have lost a spar or had his rigging torn 
to ribbons by the relentless hurricane. 

You have seen it so ; some of you, like the noble- 
man at Capernaum, have made your first acquaint- 
ance with Jesus at the illness of your boy, and you 
have perhaps already seen that the dear little fel- 
low was brought to the point of death, that you 
might be brought to the feet of Jesus. Take that 
example from your most recent history, that be- 
reavement in your household; bitter as was the 
cup, stunning as was the blow, that very event 
was not merely the divine will in the general, so 
that it could not have happened had not God 
willed it — that is philosophy. But more, it was 
God's great, wise, tender, loving thought in Christ 
Jesus concerning you — this is Gospel. 

As he cared for you — as he had eternally planned 
for your salvation, if you will; as he knew your 
case and your present necessity; as he marked out a 
course for you in life, by following which, you may 
be saved, and as he often hedged up that path with 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 209 

thickets and thorns, to keep you in the way ; as he 
would not have you lost ; so, and precisely on this 
account, he ordered that overwhelming sorrow to 
enter your household. It was in his heart simply 
to lead you to God, breaking you down at his feet, 
that he might hear your cry and bless you: chas- 
tening you, not for his pleasure, but for your profit, 
that you might be partaker of his holiness. If this 
'be so, then you could not possibly have done with- 
out that sorrow. 

Then that lesson was in your education for glory ; 
and the omission of it might have left you to lose 
your way in the wilderness and fail of your heav- 
enly heritage. Then that particular trial, which 
you called the bitterest cup of your life, was as 
truly in Christ's programme for your salvation as 
was the agony of your dying Lord — not occupy- 
ing any such place, I grant; not meriting any iota, 
nor achieving any thing which could be achieved, 
only by his vicarious groans and tears and blood, 
but belonging to the same scheme as his sacrifice 
and indispensably bound up with it in the plan for 
your redemption. 

"Oh!" you say, "if I could only so believe!" 
But this belief is that to which you are invited, 
that these trials are God's gracious cords, drawn 
only tighter ; as when one scales some Alpine sum- 
mit and feels the rope of his guide almost like the 
rope of the hangman because that is all that holds 
him up as he overhangs the abyss; or as when 
from the wreck of the steamer, one must be drawn 
through the flood by the rope around him, in order 



210 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

to be saved. I grant it ; it is no easy thing so to 
construe every bitterness of life, as only an ingre- 
dient in God's sacramental cup, but herein is the 
training for us under the Gospel. If we will re- 
ceive it, this is the will of God. 

"What," you say, u can there be any bright side 
to my trial — the ingratitude of children, the treach- 
ery of bosom friends, the loss of dear ones or the 
loss of property?" Yes — the upper side, where 
the sun shines out on the dark clouds all radiant 
with love. "Oh!" you say, "if I can feel that my 
trial is the will of God and, especially, that it is 
the loving will of God in Christ Jesus concerning 
me, I can accept it and go on under the heaviest 
load, rejoicing in the Lord alway ! " 

Does any one doubt as he looks now upon the 
history, that that poor paralytic, who was so help- 
less as to be carried by four friends like pall-bear- 
ers to Jesus for a cure, had his paralysis sent upon 
him, as a means of grace? — -just in order that he 
might be let down, through the broken verandah, 
into the presence of the great Healer, and might 
hear him say, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"? Oh! 
what an insight do we get into the wondrous com- 
binations of providence and redemption, when he 
replies to all the questioning, whether is easier to 
say, " Thy sins be forgiven thee, or, rise, take up 
thy bed and walk. But that ye may know that 
the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive 
sins, he saith to the sick of the palsy, Rise and 
walk ! " And so also that ye may know that he 
hath power on earth to heal the paralytic, he 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 211 

saith, "Thy sins are forgiven." The providence 
is redemptive. 

' And, second, the redemption is providential. 

The path to glory for us sinners lies through 
this world. The great Kedeemer does not, at once 
upon our conversion, take us up to heaven; but 
he makes us set our faces thitherward — makes us 
aim at it and march towards it, and makes us de- 
scribe the pathway by our weary, foot-sore prog- 
ress in a gradual training and unfolding of our 
new nature for that new estate. Our path lies 
through the wilderness to Canaan. He can not do 
the marching for us. We must march ourselves. 
Every dealing, therefore, comes to us labelled with 
our personal address and with this inscription: 
this thing and this, whatever it be, is "the will of 
God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 

The likeness of Jesus, in which we are to awake, 
is to be chiselled by sharp instruments, and the 
features are thus to be delicately wrought out and 
clearly defined, till they glow with the very linea- 
ments of Divinity. There seems often, therefore, 
a severity in the dealing. But it is just because 
the finish must needs be exquisite that the artist 
must grave and carve so much and strike so many 
blows. 

There will often appear to be a strange indiffer- 
ence to your earthly circumstances in God's deal- 
ings. But is it not according to truth? Have 
you not often yourself seen how houses and lands 
and comforts, such as gold can purchase, aye and 
even friends, which gold can not buy, are noth- 



212 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

ing, if the heart be sick — if you have no inward 
peace ? And therefore is it that God will have his 
dealing reach your inmost spirit and probe those 
hidden depths and cure that trouble within. And 
then you are possessed of the essential elements 
of happiness and may feel yourself quite superior 
to the earthly lot. Look at the boy who can be 
saved from the wreck of that sinking steamer, 
only by a kind hand thrusting him violently 
through the narrow port-hole to the outside. 

Besides, there is a training needful for the life 
beyond; and the living here must therefore be 
made to take hold upon the life hereafter. And 
the discipline is requisite, just in proportion as the 
future work is in the higher department. 

The worker in iron can not set his hand to work 
in gold; the huge bellows and hammer and anvil 
are not the implements of the goldsmith. That 
brawny arm and rough finger and careless eye 
and sturdy blow are not the qualifications for the 
fine tracery and gorgeous chasing of the precious 
metal which is to glisten on the bosom of royalty 
or on the finger of wealth as a gem of art. Oh 
no ! That is not the work which graves the very 
name of the owner and of the donor on the golden 
gift and makes it a presentation of love. 

And our education here is to be a musical edu- 
cation. 

It is the aim of God's schooling to instruct us in 
the service of praise. And this can be done, in 
some cases, only in a small degree as yet. Some 
are so complaining, so discordant; they are so in- 



UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 213 

genious in detecting flaws in their daily allot- 
ments, that they seldom take up any anthem 
upon their lips. But others are full of song; 
they cheer the most melancholy hours by some 
hymn of praise, and, at worst, they are only strik- 
ing a minor key, soothing the painful moments by 
the plaintive tones. 

"Some murmur when their sky is clear, 

And wholly bright to view, 
If one small speck of dark appear 

In their great heaven of blue. 
And some with thankful love are filled 

If but one streak of light, 
One ray of God's good mercy gild 

The darkness of their night." 

And is not this the secret of a happy life ? No 
mere chimera, no castles in the air, no gay rou- 
tine of exhausting excitements and excessive in- 
dulgences, but a life of joy built upon the most 
solid foundations of God's Gospel truth. Not only 
viewing every thing as consistent with God's will, 
but rejoicing always in God's will, as it is in Christ 
Jesus concerning us. Try it one day — one hour, 
to be thankful for every thing on this high prin- 
ciple — for prosperity, not merely because it is 
sweet, but because it is God's will concerning you 
in Christ Jesus ; for adversity, not only because it 
is the divine will, but because this very thing, 
whatever it be — disappointment, bereavement — is 
the divine will in Christ Jesus concerning you. 

I have seen the highest skill in engineering gain 
the rugged mountain summit by a back track — by 



214 UNIVERSAL THANKFULNESS. 

doubling the road upon itself— just because the 
grade was too steep to be overcome otherwise, 
and the chasm too deep and fearful to be bridged 
over. I have seen the same object accomplished 
by tunnelling the ridges, and laying the track 
through the dark bowels of the mountain peak; 
and then, oh, if you are afraid as you enter the 
tunnel — afraid of the sudden gloom and the fearful 
noise and the overhanging masses — the clatter of 
wheels echoed by the rocky walls — if you think 
you have gone into that dreary midnight passage 
never to come out, then you may shrink and sink, 
just for lack of confidence in him who laid the 
pathway by that dark route, as the very best. But 
maybe you . have gone through it often enough to 
feel no shudder, nor shock, but only laying aside 
your paper, or hushing for a moment your conver- 
sation, you can sit and sing till the light breaks 
in at the farther side. 

My brethren take this passage from God's book 
of joy, wear it as a frontlet between your eyes, 
grave it upon the palms of your hands, try the 
sweet experiment of a universal thankfulness — 
everywhere, everyhovv, and always. 

" Careful for nothing, prayerful for every thing, 
thankful for anything" — "and the peace of God 
which passeth all understanding, shall keep your 
hearts and minds by Christ Jesus." 



XIII. 

FEAR AND FAITH. 

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee."— Psalm lvi. 3. 

The Psalmist, in the text, commits himself be- 
forehand, for all his seasons of alarm, to a uniform 
and an unshaken confidence in God. The power 
of such a principle in the life of any man must 
needs be amazing. 

If one had a drug for all his pains and fevers and 
flesh wounds, so that the application of it would 
always give him ease and work a ready cure, how 
must it affect his mortal history! 

But beyond these actual afflictions, fears are 
common to us all. And if these all could be al- 
layed at once by some sovereign appliance, how 
blest were the bosom that could carry in itself the 
wondrous efficacious balm ! How immensely any 
of our lives must be relieved to wipe out, at once, 
from our emotions the whole list of alarms tem- 
poral and spiritual, secret fears, sudden frights 
and overhanging terrors ! How the past history 
of any one here must have been quite another 
thing, if those brooding apprehensions and dreary 
forebodings that have made up so much of our 
experience, could have had no place ! 



216 FEAR AND FAITH. 

Observe; the Gospel message is not merely "be 
healed" "be saved" but, "be not a/raid, it is I, fear 
not." When you consider how "the news of trouble 
may be borne to you on any breeze, what a stretch 
of security is that to cover with the promise or 
to embrace in the description of a believer. " He 
shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, 
trusting in the Lord." And when you know some- 
thing of what it is to have the pestilence stalk 
abroad through your streets or in your neighbor- 
hood, smiting the people with panic, to hear the 
sweet assurance coming to you in such terms as 
these — "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by 
night nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for 
the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the 
destruction that wasteth at noonday." This is such 
a balm as the world can not give. 

This language in the text is not that of a mere 
resolve — the result of some theoretic speculation, 
or of some temporizing policy, or of some self-suffi- 
cient impulse. It is the outbreak of devout com- 
munion with God — fresh in the experience of wliat 
he is for a trust, and it is a solemn, personal pledge, 
left with the divine party as the fruit of most sol- 
emn personal intercourse and understandings. 

It is the testimony of one whose common faith 
has grown so strong, through ordinary, e very-day 
exercise as to feel quite prepared for trying sea- 
sons. It requires one to have trusted in daily 
matters to rally an adequate trust for sudden and 
severe occasions. The lone tree that would bide 
the tempest needs to be rooted and strengthened 



FEAR AND FAITH. 217 

under many ordinary winds. It is no solitary act 
of faith that is requisite. It is the believing spirit. 

Observe, then, why he seizes upon his seasons 
of fear that are to come again as they have nat- 
urally come before. It is not the feeling of the 
coward sinner, who never flies to God but when 
his fright comes on. It is not the cold and slug- 
gish plan of a false professor who bespeaks God's 
attention for such times of terror, and cares not for 
him beside. It is not the presumptuous confidence 
of a man who composes himself in the general 
goodness of God for seasons of adversity. It is 
the feeling of a ripe believer who has just come 
out of some sore alarm, and because he has found 
God a very present help in trouble, has at once 
built an altar there and called the place by that 
name and written this inscription, like Abraham's 
on the mount, " The Lord will provide." 

You know something of what it is to have com- 
mercial revulsion desolate your business circles, 
prostrating your most established merchants, strik- 
ing down your most trusted dependences, drying 
up your best worldly resources, all of a sudden, it 
may be — all in one tremendous crash. 

Consider, then, first of all, that this trusting 
spirit which so braces itself against fear, is well 
suited to the grounds of our hope. 

We have learned by many an experience to dis- 
criminate between objects of confidence. Not all 
persons or things, alike, can win our faith. God 
has given us himself for our trust — all his re- 
sources, all his attributes; whom no casualty can 



218 FEAR AND FAITH. 

overtake, whom no fortuity can disappoint, whom 
no power can baffle, whom no demands can ex- 
haust. Head over all things — Lord of lords, God 
over all — in whom all things consist : he is our Sa- 
viour. "Look unto me," he says, "and be ye saved, 
for I am God and there is none else " — " Trust ye 
in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is 
everlasting strength." No wonder that one who so 
eminently trusted him should so often have made 
it the chorus of his songs for all ages: " Blessed is 
the man that trusteth in thee." No wonder that 
everywhere in troublous times, God's people have 
sung, in all languages, and have even gone out to 
the battle with enemies, singing — " God is our ref- 
uge and strength, a veiy present help in trouble ; 
therefore will not we fear though the earth be 
removed." 

But more than this, God has given us a cove- 
nant ordered in all things and sure. This written 
pledge for whatever may betide us — so worded as 
to cover all cases and circumstances, all issues 
and events — provides for adversities, is ordered in 
trials, as well as in prosperity. 

Consider, then, in the second place, that the re- 
lation here observed between fear and trust is that 
in which vital religion peculiarly appears. For we 
see how it is an easy matter to entertain a gen- 
eral trust, apart from any realities of its exercise. 
It is easy to hold the doctrine of it, apart from any 
of its operations. A technical, professional faith, 
that is with many a church member like a mere 
theory of the heavens which he has given in to but 



FEAR AND FAITH. 219 

which concerns him not, is qnite another thing 
from an active and practical trust. Easy enough 
is it to trust God in smooth seas, and in bright 
sunshine, and to profess such trust in the general ; 
but to put it in practice and have a lively exer- 
cise of it, when tempests come on and storms howl 
fearfully around you — this is the substance of which 
that is the shadow at most. 

This sad mistake of many is the basis of that 
unnatural separation between a faith for spiritual 
things and a faith for temporal things. The Chris- 
tian that trusts God for his soul and can not trust 
him for the body, shows this egregious absurdity 
— "Is not the life more than meat and the body 
than raiment," and the soul than the body? If 
God will clothe the lily, will he not clothe his 
people? And if he will clothe their bodies, will 
he not clothe their souls ? 

Understand, then, a light is for the darkness, 
whether it be that of a deep dungeon in the day- 
time, or that of ordinary night. The exercise of 
trust belongs to whatever time of fear. It is appro- 
priate for any kind of fear, in any stage of our 
history, in any department of our affairs. And 
so, the only genuine trust will take this broad 
compass of the text and commit itself for any such 
a juncture, anywhere, in any case — "Trust in the 
Lord at all times ye people." The times of fear 
are the very times for trust, when our principle 
is tested and our religion can display itself where 
nothing else could serve. 

Observe, then, the importance of this Christian 



220 FEAR AND FAITH. 

principle in the text as appears, thirdly, from the 
tenor of God's dealings with his people wherein he 
develops their religion. 

It is found to be precisely what our conditions 
in life most chiefly demand. It is of God's own 
purpose that we are constantly thrust into those 
difficult positions where this very peculiar grace 
is called for. The essence of a godly trust seems 
to lie in this relation which it bears to fearful cir- 
cumstances. There is no room for trust where 'a 
man can see as he goes. It is where he can not see 
— where the way is hedged up, that he is shut up 
unto the faith There he is called on to confide in 
what shall be revealed in the fact, and what has 
been already revealed in the promise. It is because 
this is of the very nature of Christian trust that 
every Christian finds himself so often in just such 
straits — where he is divested of common reliances 
and sees other trusts torn one by one away, and 
sees, too, the floods of his affliction rising fast 
around him, so that it grows deep and deeper 
where he stands — then he does so often cry out, 
at length, as one dealt with and disciplined and 
dissuaded from any other trust — "Lead me to the 
Eock that is higher than 7." 

Observe now, the working of this principle in 
spiritual things. 

It is just where Ave have abundant grounds of 
fear that we are challenged to seize this surpass- 
ing confidence. It was just because he was afraid, 
that the Christian cast himself into such arms of 
a divine covenant for his soul. Therefore Peter 



FEAR AND FAITH. 221 

was allowed to step out into the sea that in his 
rising fear he might trust. Who comes in at the 
open gate of this city of refuge but the affrighted 
sinner who flees from the wrath to come? "Know- 
ing therefore the terror (fear) of the Lord, we per- 
suade men." 

We know that no man will ever find occasion 
or motive to trust until some fears are aroused. 
They who have indolently taken up this Chris- 
tian reliance, with scarce an emotion, without a 
struggle, can not know, as yet, how great is this 
salvation. They have not grasped their religion 
strongly or earnestly enough to get the full advan- 
tage of it. Here, then, the timid Christian, full of 
fears and pressed down with gloomy apprehensions, 
may find out his common mistake. It is just be- 
cause he sees so much to alarm in God's aveng- 
ing justice, in his own peculiar sins and in his 
sad unfitness for God's favor and for heaven — it is 
just because of this, that he is called to trust in 
him who meets all these grounds of fear by his 
own amazing provisions ! Let the trembling and 
alarmed remember that only they who are some- 
how weary and heavy laden can take rest! Only a 
wounded spirit can take the balm. 

Such it is that Christ is seeking — those who 
would seek such an one as Christ. To whomso- 
ever the Gospel comes as glad tidings, to him it is 
the Gospel. The poor man stripped and bruised 
and left helpless by his foes on the road -side 
may be passed by the Levite and bigot priest 
and scorned by the crowd because he is in so 



222 FEAR AND FAITH. 

grievous a case. But to sucli an one, and for this 
very reason the good Samaritan turns. He has 
the oil and wine for his wounds and he has the 
price for his keeping. Let a man that has fears — 
fears for his soul, fears of his -unbelief, fears about 
his acceptance, fears of his insincerity, fears lest 
he has grieved the Spirit, fears lest he has com- 
mitted the unpardonable sin, fears lest his stub- 
born, icy heart may never melt — let him fly indeed 
and fly from the wrath that is coming, but let him 
fly to Christ. Here is the rule of Christian living 
— "What time I am afraid" — afraid that I shall 
yet come short of heaven, afraid that Satan will 
yet gain the advantage and in some heedless hour 
will thrust his fang into my heel or into my heart, 
afraid that Christ will leave me and the Holy Ghost 
give me up, afraid that I shall be devoured by sav- 
age beasts in the dark valley of death — "What 
time I am afraid, I will trust in thee ! " 

But observe further, the very fear shall suggest 
the confidence, and the working of this principle 
in temporal things must be essentially the same as 
in the spiritual. 

Do we forget that Abraham's faith, for which 
he had righteousness counted unto him, was the 
faith of a father respecting his child who was the 
son of promise, when the heart of the patriarch 
almost bursting, and his very tears mingling with 
the sacrifice, yet believed and yet triumphed? Do 
we forget that the minute, secular history of all 
the ancient saints is preserved to us on holy rec- 
ord for its influence upon our daily living ? Do 



FEAR AND FAITH. 223 

we forget that even in our temporal career and in 
each day's course, we are to walk by faith, and not 
to walk by sight ? The passing views we take of 
things may be from the appearance, as we may 
not always think but that the sun walks daily 
round the earth as would seem. But to make a 
calculation of the heavens on this hypothesis would 
involve the grossest mistakes. 

We see, then, the common violation of this Chris- 
tian principle of the text, amongst the troubles of 
real life — that amidst their fears Christian men 
will give themselves up to their own sensations 
and vain reasonings and virtually set aside this 
trust! They will demand to see in the dark else 
they can not believe; but it is just where they can 
not see that they are required to believe. 

What practical ignorance of this vital princi- 
ple do we find amongst our real adversities ! Sad 
enough is it that they who stand in the church as 
Christians and whose religion, like any other light, 
should shine brightest in the dark, show often so 
much fretfulness and tearfulness and despondency, 
and give so little credit to a covenant God in their 
times of trouble or alarm ! Behold what efforts are 
made to fly from providence, to effect an escape 
from the danger and from the duty that it brings, 
rather than amidst the danger to trust ! So Jonah 
flies. Hard is it in the midst of terrors to stand 
still and see the salvation of God: yet this is the 
perfection of our confidence. 

Will you trust Christ no further than you can see 
him ? Must you perceive beforehand and all along 



224 FEAR AND FAITH. 

just what he is bringing about and how he will do 
it? Then you would walk by sight and not by 
faith. Then you would strip him of his preroga- 
tive. Oh, it is one thing to go your own way of 
your own self and quite another thing is it to be led. 
But the blind man is led — is willing to be led — 
and though there is discomfort in blindness, yet 
who would not be blindfolded or blinded rather 
than go to his own place and in his own way to 
perdition! "I will bring the blind by a way that 
they knew not, I will lead them in paths that they 
have not known, I will make darkness light before 
them and crooked things straight." This is the 
prerogative and promise of God. 

But bring the professed believer to the point and 
the Christian responds to all the claim with the 
cheerful confession, "I will trust in thee." Let even 
Jacob be actually famishing with all his house and 
have Joseph's coat brought home to him in blood, 
and Benjamin demanded by a severe lord in Egypt, 
and how naturally he exclaims in his grief and 
fear — "All these things are against me!" But 
those things were for him — only he could not see 
it. He sees or thinks he sees inevitable ruin star- 
ing him in the face. It is so imminent, so cer- 
tain ; how vain are human reasoning's ! The quiet 
he could get from a mere fatalism is only the quiet 
of despair. Nothing comforts him, but every thing 
crushes more and more. The case is clearly des- 
perate. All that he sees is such as to break him 
down, but God in Christ he does not see. Who 
can dispute the senses, he says. 



FEAR AND FAITH, 225 

So even with Abram the father of the faithful. 
What can possibly come in now, between the up- 
lifted knife of Abraham and the slaughter and 
death of Isaac. " Isaac must now die, and if Isaac 
dies, I am undone/ 1 A short step to the conclu- 
sion. Yet, behold even now, only behind him, is 
the very ram for the burnt-offering, and hovering 
over him, only silent as yet, is the eternal word 
of God. Yet how commonly our fears get the 
mastery. 

The den of lions would seem certain death to 
Daniel. "It must be so," we would say. "Who 
ever escaped from it, or from the fiery furnace of 
Nebuchadnezzar heated seven times?" Yet, give 
up to such fears and you may die of grief before 
even the reality comes on — you may sink into the 
earth, out of mere despair, while all your energy 
is demanded for your escape. You may induce 
the disease which you dread by the very panic of 
mind which you indulge. 

It is vain to say "What time I am not afraid, I 
will trust in thee." There is no virtue in this if 
this be all, no reality in it. It is a delusion just 
because there an active trust has no place. 

And then, too, we are mostly comforting our- 
selves, that we have no occasion for reliance on 
God. Many of us have a church faith of this kind 
— speculative, inactive, ready to deny itself in- 
stead of to endure self -denial; ready to give way, 
the moment it is tried in the fire. 

"Are you able to drink of the cup that I drink 
of, saith Christ himself, and to be baptized with the 
15 



226 FEAR AND FAITH. 

baptism that I am baptized with " — not indeed to 
plunge from the Temple-top and trust to angels as 
Satan would have you do, but to go up on your own 
cross and even die by violence, and trust ? Are you 
ready to give up your own Isaac and believe that 
God can even raise him up if he will, to make 
his promise good. And finally, when things have 
even turned out most adversely as it would seem, 
are you able to believe that yet — yet — all can 
eventuate well and will eventuate in the best man- 
ner under God? Mary, Martha, can you believe 
not only that if Christ had been here your brother 
had not died but even now, at this late hour, with 
Lazarus four days in the grave, your brother shall 
rise again and rise now if he gives the word — rise 
in some other form — in some friend and helper 
if not in person. Can you trust, my hearer, even 
while God seems plainly in an attitude to slay you; 
nay, after he has slain all your earthly hopes ? 

Here is the difficulty. The things which dis- 
courage you are seen. The things which should 
encourage you are tcnseen. Your fears seem to 
you all opposite to these hopes. But the time of 
fear is the time for trust. In the heat of that 
very struggle, believe ! Then, when any unbeliever 
would despair — when, in an inner prison, your feet 
are fast in the stocks and it is midnight, and the 
jailor is at the door, and soldiers are chained fast 
to you on either side — then if you can sing praises 
unto God, this is trust, worthy a Christian believer. 
It shall be counted to you for righteousness, be- 
cause it is such a trust as lays hold on Christ for 



FEAR AND FAITH. 227 

the soul's salvation. It is of the same essence as 
the saving faith. 

To most, the practical absurdity will seem to be 
that such a trust for such stern realities is like 
living on an idea! That it is nothing but doc- 
trine attempting to console a man in the very 
strife of adversity. But it is not living on faith 
as you think. It is living by faith and living on 
Jesus Christ. You say there is nothing to rest on ! 
Nothing of sense, I know, but what does the globe 
rest on ? It is hung out by God's power in the air 
and kept in its accurate orbit by the infinite con- 
sistencies of that power. It is founded on the 
seas and established on the flood. In the sea of 
your fears and your trials, walk on the troubled 
waters at the bidding of your Lord. 

There is something of this confidence in society, 
where often you must have an ultimate trust in 
fellow-men back of all that appears. This is a 
confidence in character or in power, or both! Is 
it much to trust God thus far, or on this principle 
to the very farthest — his character is glorious, his 
power is infinite. You must trust a fellow-man 
out of your sight, often farther than you can see 
him. Your ultimate reliance is on his established 
and unwavering truth and honesty and ability. 
Can you not so accredit God, though he be in the 
heavens, the better for his being so exalted, where 
you know of his power all around you and in you 
and dare not doubt his word ? 

Come now, my hearer, to some dreadful trial and 
see how you can trust. Let your hopes all be dis- 



228 FEAR AND FAITH. 

appointed and let every thing look dark and blank 
as midnight or the grave. Let your earthly re- 
sources all fail! Your throbbing heart begins to 
shrink and despair. All these things are against 
you. Your trust seems but as a feather on the 
tide amidst this tempestuous and boiling sea. Be- 
hold, now, at length some monster of the deep is 
ready to swallow you up ! Can you go into his 
jaws trusting in God? You ask a sign from 
heaven? There shall no sign be given you but 
the sign of Jonas the prophet. 

You have examples, you have the assurances 
beforehand; the word that Christ hath spoken is 
your hope. You would not think so far as to con- 
ceive the wondrous ivay of escape in every case, 
but let God have his own way and trust thou in 
him ! He prepared the monster to swallow, with- 
out devouring. He can prepare agents and results 
so that the very monster that seemed to have 
eaten you up shall prove to have only taken you 
in safe-keeping, to land you in due time on the 
shore ! A miracle of mercy ! Trust God outside 
of all that appears — beyond your fears, beyond 
your severest straits, beyond death and the grave. 
Hope in him, against hope; and in the midst of 
your crushing trials, and after your losses are even 
realized and your worst fears are proved less than 
the desolating reality, stand up and say, " Though 
I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me, 
thou shalt stretch forth thine hand upon the wrath 
of mine enemies and thy right hand shall save 
me." 



FEAR AND FAITH. 229 

This, I confess, goes a great step beyond any- 
common confidence among men. Here it defies a 
parallel in human society. Among men you will 
trust so long as there can be hope that what you 
fear will not come to pass ! But when the worst 
that you dreaded is realized, how shall you trust 
in one whose hand is actually striking you down ? 
"Trust in him at all times, ye people, pour out 
your hearts before him; God is a refuge for us; 
though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; be- 
hold the fowls of the air; consider the lilies." Who 
would say beforehand that the fowls could have 
their daily meals without storehouse or barn, with- 
out work or wages; or that the lilies could have 
raiment more splendid than Solomon's without care 
or cost. Nay, who would say that a man could 
actually have his food carried to him by ravens. 
Yet interpositions as marvellous as this have oc- 
curred, perhaps in our own knowledge — if not in 
our own history. u Because he hath inclined his 
ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as 
long as I live." 

Even Job, far back in the midst of patriarch 
times, had such an every-day trust. God answered 
him out of the whirlwind in tones as sweet as an- 
gels use. It was no mere theory — nothing dead, 
but living. There was a time for his trust when 
a whole procession of calamities had come apace 
and the bewildering news flashed like successive 
bolts of lightning upon him. Assassins slew his 
servants, the conflagration consumed his flocks, 
robbers stole his camels, and a hurricane swept 



230 FEAR AND FAITH. 

away his sons amidst the ruins of their house. 
And this patriarch, with his dim and narrow rev- 
elations of God and tempted by Satan and the 
world in that doleful hour when all was gone, 
when his earthly hopes were so successively and 
swiftly blasted, still sings in calmest confidence 
— "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: 
blessed be the name of the Lord/' 

Ye men of Galilee who have boasted your faith 
on the shore, come out now upon the Sea of Gal- 
ilee in the vessel; Christ is embarked with you, or 
he walks out on the boiling billows at the fourth 
watch of the night to look after you. And now 
you are thinking him asleep or you are imagining 
his heavenly form as it approaches to be some ap- 
parition haunting your darksome way; you are 
crying out in the gale as though he who comes 
to save you were some spirit of the storm, as 
though you had no Saviour, or as though he had 
not control of the elements which threaten to en- 
gulf your all, or as though he had turned to be a 
destroyer; or you fear your common ground of 
trusting will not stand you in this present case : 
and this shameful timidity is just what he rebukes, 
just what he wonders at, as he knows his infinite 
resources for your help. " Why are ye so fearful, 
ye of little faith: 1 

You think that the managing of your vessel is 
so much a mere mechanical matter that it is too 
purely a business concern for God Almighty to 
deal with, that it is just a thing of the helm, or 
that this surviving a financial storm is merely a 



FEAR AND FAITH. 231 

business of notes and banks and mercantile sagac- 
ity ; just a matter between man and man, too secu- 
lar for Jesus Christ to concern himself with. But 
did not this same Saviour think it worth working 
a miracle to enable Peter to pay his taxes — aye, to 
pay his own tax — rather than that his children or 
his cause should suffer discredit ? And if he could 
make a fish come up to the apostle's hook, bearing 
the very coin that was needed, what bankers can 
he not command, how can his agencies ever fail, 
when can his deposits be exhausted, when shall 
his trusting servants be deserted by him ? 

The believer who comes upon his trying times — 
his times of temptation or apprehension or afflic- 
tion or dissolution — remembers that these seasons 
are just those which his common every-day piety 
was all along girding itself for, that these severe 
conflicts are just what he was always given to ex- 
pect, that his ordinary faith in fair weather was 
always strengthening to outride the tempest when 
it should come on, that it was training itself to 
grapple with the tempter and the monster when 
they should rise to do their worst, and so he is 
the overcomer at last, just by being a habitual 
daily overcomer. 

What shall they do who are thinking it will be 
enough to talk of faith when the time of fear has 
come? If the dying thief had a stronger faith 
than was almost ever known, I assure you there 
was need of it — to have had its first exercise in the 
very struggle and agony of death — faith at such a 
crisis, for the first, is rather a miraculous grace, a 



232 FEAR AND FAITH. 

rare specimen just to illustrate in the brightest way 
that stupendous occasion on Calvary. 

Trust not to such an hour. Your death-bed is 
not calm, when all your life of sin comes up against 
you, staring you in the face ; when all your lifelong 
rejection of Christ is rising up to forbid your hope 
at the last hour ; when your very inbred habits of 
unbelief seem not to allow of a calm confidence 
on such a sudden — at that outermost verge of 
life when the sinking spirits refuse to trust ; when 
your own conscience within is full of accusations ; 
when even the fever or the stupor of your disease 
shall be against any such act of the heart as de- 
mands a most collected, well advised, deliberate 
and strong application of all the energies ; to trust, 
then, for the first " when the fear cometh as deso- 
lation and the destruction cometh as a whirlwind, 
when distress and anguish come upon you," would 
seem against all the laws of your being. It shall 
not be because God refuses to be gracious. Oh, 
no! It shall be rather because an affrighted, be- 
wildered, sinking, perishing soul can not easily 
trust then for the first. 

Behold, then, the high attainment of piety is 
here. "They that trust in the Lord shall be as 
Mount Zion which can not be moved." The Chris- 
tian that has trusted Christ, in view of the last and 
worst of Satan's accusations — of death's struggles 
and of the dreadful bar itself — looks forward to 
the dying point and shouts beforehand, " Yea, 
though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." 



FEAR AND FAITH. 233 

They who trust in frames and experiences rather 
than in the simple word of grace shall always have 
fears beyond any reach. Unless there is a hope for 
us as worthless sinners, we have no satisfying and 
sure consolation. Unless there is a ground of hope 
without us and above us we can find no firm 
foundation. 

The Christian's fears drive him always to the 
same shelter and refuge. What new terror in 
death shall frighten him away from Christ? "I 
am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor an- 
gels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things pres- 
ent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
any other creature shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, 
our Lord." 

In many a fearful time, when providence has 
been all dark and actually adverse, the believer 
has stood up in the midst of trouble and thought 
of God's goodness covenanted to him, and of God's 
wisdom pledged to arrange for him; he ventures 
to believe against all present appearances, he dares 
think, amidst all that is inscrutable now, that there 
is a good reason with God for every grief or fear he 
suffers or shall suffer, and he is at peace. In his 
terrors he trusts, and this is the power of his confi- 
dence. What other trust can serve him? What 
shall the habitual unbeliever do in that extremity 
unpractised to any such reliance? To whom shall 
he go ? Whither shall he seek for refuge ? 

You know not, my hearer, how hard it is to put 
away all natural impressions and in the darkest 



234 FEAR AND FAITH. 

hour to behold the Lamb of God whom you never 
would see in your brightest days — when you find 
that you have been all your life long spinning 
for yourself, and out of your own bosom, a death 
shroud, soft and silken it may be, like the silk- 
worm's, but, like its cocoon, a coffin. Tell the 
drowning man, who has never balanced himself 
in the waters, to do it now, when he is swept 
from the wreck into the boiling ocean, amidst his 
terrors and alarms ; preach to him the whole the- 
ory, as you believe. Tell him to cease his striv- 
ings, to compose himself and lie down on the 
bosom of the flood, and set his face steadfastly 
towards heaven and float upon the wave. Can 
he do it? Oh, no! He will likely enough cry 
out in his alarm and strangle in the act. He will 
struggle and go down in the attempt. He can not 
trust now for the first amidst such swelling bil- 
lows and such desolating fears. 

Practice in your calmest times this heavenly art 
of trusting Christ, the great Redeemer, and then 
you can say, " What time I am afraid, instead of 
desponding, shrinking, fretting, despairing, I will 
sweetly compose my soul in God, and, casting my 
all on the bosom of thy covenant, I will trust in 
thee" 



XIV. 

NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT BY PER- 
SONAL SANCTIFICATION. 

"Peter saith unto him : Thou shalt never wash my feet! Jesus 
answered him : If I wash thee not thou hast no part with me. 
Simon Peter saith unto him : Lord, not my feet only, but also my 
hands and my head." — John xiii. 8-9. 

Our blessed Lord had come, with the twelve, to 
sit down at the Last Paschal Supper, which was to 
introduce his betrayal and death. What does he 
say and do, that best befits such an occasion ? He 
speaks a parable in the act. Condescending love 
could find no earthly picture wherewith to express 
itself, for there was never an instance like this. 
He rises from the table, before proceeding with 
the feast, comes to his disciples, one by one — 
comes girt with a towel, in the garb of a servant, 
and proposes to wash their feet. You know the 
sequel. Our Lord came to Simon Peter. This im- 
petuous and noble apostle declined the service as 
a thing quite too humiliating for his Master to do 
— too humiliating for him to accept from his Lord. 
Jesus insisted, and even made it a condition of his 
saving grace, that this very thing here proposed, 
and whatsoever he proposed for any of his people, 
should be accepted at his hands. This brings Pe- 



236 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

ter to terms. He could hold out no longer. He 
sees it in a new light. It is no mere courtesy, 
no mere formality, it is absolute necessity and he 
yields most cordially, most fully, in the language 
of our text — "Lord, not my feet only, but also my 
hands and my head." 

View the picture, my brethren. It is a scene for 
us all to contemplate. There are lessons for us all 
to learn. Jesus has a plan for the thorough cleans- 
ing of each disciple. He proposes for each of us, 
in all the minutiae of life, his divers methods for 
our most entire personal sanctification. By vari- 
ous means of grace and various dealings of prov- 
idence, he comes round to each and urges upon us 
his cleansing processes. We are often inclined to 
take exception here and there to this and that, but 
we have no right to object to any thing he pro- 
poses for us. He insists upon each item as indis- 
pensable to our salvation, and what he will bring 
each of us to, if we are saved, is just this whgle- 
hearted concurrence with him in his whole scheme 
and system of grace; so that we shall earnestly 
pray — " Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands 
and my head." 

Look now at the infinite condescension of Jesus 
in this work of our sanctification. To rescue us 
from the bondage of sin, the first step he takes is 
that wonderful leap, just at one bound, from the 
highest heaven to the lowest condition of earth. 
" He took upon him the form of a servant, and 
was made in the likeness of men." "And being 
found in fashion as a man," he took the most ab- 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 237 

ject state of our humanity. "He humbled him- 
self" below all ordinary condition of humankind 
and "became obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross." And when you say, that this was 
to save men from hell, do you not understand that 
there is no jwssibility of personal salvation except 
by personal sanctification? Nay, that salvation it- 
self, properly understood, is just this sanctifica- 
tion itself. That therefore, you are in the way 
of being saved, only as you are in the way of 
being sanctified; and that hence all the questions 
about election, predestination and personal salva- 
tion do, in their practical aspect, turn upon this liv- 
ing question, of personal sanctification; and that 
so God's eternal decrees of salvation, are really 
indicated and brought to light by our habitual 
actions, and that he is plainly an elect man, and 
only he, who elects Christ for his Saviour and who 
has thus the mark of sanctification on the forehead 
of his daily living. 

And so it is that this profound doctrine, which 
so many stumble at, is everywhere presented in 
the Scriptures, in its living, practical connections. 
This very Peter says, in his epistle, after he has 
here been made to understand the doctrine well, 
" Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the 
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto 
obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ," 
Not elect unto eternal life, do what you will. No ! 
elect unto obedience. Ah ! this is the brand by 
which the Good Shepherd marks his sheep, with 
a monogram of both initials in one — "My sheep 



238 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

hear my voice, I know them and they follow me," 
and so it comes to pass that they shall never per- 
ish. So you may know them from all others. So 
said Paul, u I bear in my body, the marks of the 
Lord Jesus." 

Look now at this condescending kindness of 
our Lord, in pressing upon you his work of sanc- 
tification. When he comes to you, and you are 
found so reluctant to accept his method, see him 
still following you up in life, plying you with 
every new motive ; visiting you with tender warn- 
ings, earnest reproofs and rebukes of his provi- 
dence ; hedging you in so from your cherished sins, 
begging and entreating you to accept his grace of 
cleansing in all particulars of daily life. This is 
his menial attitude, girt with a towel and pouring 
water into the bason and coming to you with the 
entreaty that you would allow him to wash your 
feet. 

But as regards the methods. They seem to us 
arbitrary often, and unnecessary, and we demur. 

Look here at the significance of this transaction, 
the water-washing — true it is, at most, a sign of 
something greater and better that is signified. Is 
the sign then so necessary? So you say of the 
sacraments: u May you not be a Christian, and yet 
not be baptized or partake of the Lord's Supper?" 
But Jesus says, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no 
part with me." If you set up your own opinion 
and feeling in regard to this water-washing, you 
do, in effect, repudiate the whole scheme of grace 
and claim to accept or reject as you think fit. No! 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 239 

If you accept not this very thing, which I here 
propose in the sign, you do, in effect, repudiate the 
tiling signified. We can not be saved by a mere 
creed or profession of religion, any more than we 
can be warmed by the picture of a fire. 

But let us look further at the significance of this 
action. I say to you, all and each of you, Christ 
has a plan for your personal cleansing, complete in 
all its details. You can not afford to reject it in 
any minute particular. It is not for you to pro- 
nounce any thing trivial or unnecessary in his plan 
for you. He knows what you need and wherein 
you lack, and he comes to you — Peter, James, or 
John — comes with his own chosen methods of 
cleansing — "Then cometh he to Simon Peter " — 
and then he comes in his round of the ages to you, 
my brethren, and he begins with each here, at the 
feet. And this is daily needful and indispensable, 
though you may have been regenerated at heart. 
Here he comes in this symbolical transaction. He 
has himself explained it, He says, "He that is 
washed or bathed, needeth not save to wash his 
feet." So the man who is regenerated needs yet 
to have his daily corruptions washed away by 
daily processes of sanctification. The man Avho 
deems the gracious work accomplished for him- 
self, at the outset, by the regenerating act, and has 
not waked up to consider how he needs this same 
cleansing efficacy reapplied from day to day, he 
must be aroused from his terrible mistake or he 
is lost! 

Are you considering it enough to be a Chris- 



240 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

tian in the general and not in the particular, or 
to have been a Christian once, if not now ? or are 
you claiming that this Christianity shall not come 
down to the minutiae of your life and control your 
habits, in the smallest items, and regulate all your 
intercourse and sway all your tempers and your 
speech and restrict your indulgences and set up 
its throne in your whole living, so as that every 
thought shall be brought into captivity to the obe- 
dience of Christ? Then, there is your fatal mis- 
take. There is where you have failed to be a pro- 
nounced and recognized Christian, because you 
have not carried your religion into the minor de- 
tails of life. You have thought it beneath the 
Master to come down to so common and menial a 
business as to wash your feet. And just because 
you do not think it worth your while to act upon 
Christian principle in such common every-day mat- 
ters, no man can see where you are acting on 
Christian principle at all. You say this or that 
indulgence, this or that prevarication or overreach- 
ing is innocent, and Jesus does not concern himself 
with such trivial things. " I can do this or that, 
go hither or thither, as I please." And so you say, 
at the first blush of the subject, "Thou shaft never 
wash my feet." 

But these defilements that are contracted in the 
common paths of life, this whole question of what 
you say and do, and whither you go, and into 
what dust and dirt of the street you wilfully tread, 
is a question of prodigious moment. It involves 
your business enterprises and dealings, your asso- 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 241 

ciations in life, your private habits and social prac- 
tices — all your course and intercourse. Alas ! for 
the daily misadventures of men, whom we must 
regard as true Christians. Here is the great prac- 
tical work for the church membership, which Jesus 
sees most needful to be done — this personal sanc- 
tification and correction, in view of these indiscre- 
tions and inconsistencies and iniquities of good 
men — their evil speech, evil example, divers de- 
nials and betrayals of the Master ; their wrong-do- 
ings in business, in the family, in society, in the 
church. We need even at our communion table 
to have Jesus come round with towel and bason 
and wash the feet, even of the chief disciple. 

You object to your religion coming down to all 
this detail; you say, "This or that is not sinful, 
good men do it; to be so rigorous is excessive: 
Christ does not concern himself with such small 
matters." But this is just where he insists, and 
will take no denial. It is to wash your feet. You 
say that to carry religion into all these particu- 
lars of your common walk is carrying it quite too 
far, and virtually you protest, u Thou shaft never 
wash my feet. You may w r ash others' feet, but 
not mine." And well and truly does the Saviour 
reply, " If I wash thee not, thou hast no part 
w r ith me." 

I venture to say that no man can get to heaven 
whose Christian course does not often propose to 
him some self-denial for the example's sake. Grant 
that this thing or that thing may be abstractly in- 
nocent — innocent in itself. But is it relatively in- 
16 



242 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

nocent? Is it such a thing as you, a Christian 
man, can safely hold up and commend as an ex- 
ample to all others ? Has not your religion gone 
so far as to restrict your feet, your going hither 
and thither, or to prompt your avoiding this or 
that, on account of the example? Can any Chris- 
tian man, in this wicked world, surrounded by oth- 
ers who are watching him and pleading him as a 
pattern in questionable matters, claim to act inde- 
pendently, on his own view of what is lawful for 
himself, and regardless of the influence he may 
exert upon others ? What a monstrous mistake ! 
Can any man allow himself to go hither or thither, 
to do this or that, on the presumption that he will 
not be seen and that hence his example will be 
out of the question? What a delusion! A man 
may escape observation where he goes to do good, 
but he can not escape notice where he goes to do 
evil. 

And then this question of foot- washing, the 
cleansing of the feet which Jesus proposes for 
each of us, lies mainly just here, here amidst this 
whole circle of things which men call indifferent 
and which some claim to regard as outside of the 
sphere of this religion. And the Christian, who 
is not watchful of his path, who does not admit 
Christ to do this work of divine cleansing upon 
his daily goings, who is not heedful of the defile- 
ments which are daily contracted by the way, who 
is not jealous of his walk and anxious about it, to 
have it perfectly immaculate and to have all his 
living, even in smallest particulars, sanctified; he 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 243 

has not yet waked up to the higher ideas of the 
Christian life. 

And this brings us to the second main point of 
our text. There is a higher style of Christian liv- 
ing than most in the church are found to adopt. 
Jesus comes with towel and water, to each of us, 
to do this further needful work of additional puri- 
fication. What say you my brethren? Do you 
admit the necessity? or do you take exception and 
object and wilfully protest, where the way is dis- 
tressing or inconvenient? Do you pretend that it 
is an indignity for Jesus to concern himself with 
these small matters of yours? But the principle 
he lays down here is that nothing whatever which 
he proposes can be trivial or indifferent to you — 
nothing which he has prescribed, nothing in the 
whole sphere of personal dealing, however mi- 
nute, can be refused by you if you would be saved. 
And there is a point where every true Christian is 
brought up upon this higher platform, and abjur- 
ing all such laxity as he had entertained is led to 
say, " Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands 
and my head." 

The idea here involved is, that our daily defile- 
ments, contracted in our worldly intercourse, need 
to be daily cleansed by these processes of grace. 
If you have overlooked this, you have omitted a 
large item in the plan of salvation. This whole 
business of foot-washing concerns our habits of 
piety and our progress in the divine life. Just as 
the Jew could not eat his meal without his cere- 
monial ablutions, so every Christian is under daily 



244 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

necessity of the divine cleansing. Just as the bath- 
er, coming out of the surf, needs to have the sand 
washed from his feet, for his entire cleansing, so 
there is this daily supplementary work to be done 
upon the best Christian living. 

Have you waked up to this, my brother? Do 
you see Jesus stooping in such infinite condescen- 
sion, asking to wash your feet? Then your daily 
prayer is, for more entire conformity to the divine 
image and will, for a holier course of living, for a 
more strict and exemplary and unimpeachable walk 
in life, for a more thorough avoidance of even ques- 
tionable wrong, that your feet may tread, at every 
step, the shining path to heaven, and that they 
may not go where the Avay is slippery and where 
the road is anywise connected with the downward 
track to destruction. 

There are errands of love and mercy enough for 
the feet of the disciples of Christ, and it is part of 
the Christian armor to have " your feet shod with 
the preparation of the Gospel of peace." " Blessed 
is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the 
ungodly " — does not adopt their maxims, nor take 
their advice — "nor standeth in the way of sinners' 7 
■ — is not found in their association or connection — 
" nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful " — does not 
consort or company with them in their pursuits — 
"But his delight is in the law of the Lord: he shall 
be like a tree planted by the rivers of water: what- 
soever he doeth shall prosper." Come up, then, 
my brethren, to this higher Christian platform, to 
covet this daily sanctifying process, to put aside 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 245 

all exceptions and reserves that shall debar the 
thorough and perfect working of Christ's plan for 
your cleansing, to consider the path of your feet 
and have all your goings established, and to in- 
voke, in your daily prayer, this gracious work of 
Christ upon your daily walk. " Lead me not into 
temptation, but deliver me from evil." Let him 
wash your feet. If not, you perish ! 

But the true disciple is brought, like Peter, to a 
larger comprehension of Christ's plan for his salva- 
tion. It is not merely a salvation at last that he is 
led to crave — as many pray "save us at last" — but 
the great idea is, to be saved at present and just 
now. It is not a mere foot-washing that he begs 
— as many who would have their feet well cared 
for and who are all correct and strict as to their 
outward proprieties, always found at church and 
never in places of wicked or hurtful association, as 
though their blameless but negative walk before 
men would save them, as though it were enough 
to be professing Christians — but it is an entire 
sanctification that is besought — feet and hands 
and head. And it is just a lively conception of 
Christ's condescending, dying love to sinners and 
to us, which brings us to put off our laxity and to 
come into harmony with his gracious plan in our 
case. It is when we see him taking this menial 
garb and performing these menial offices, all to pu- 
rify and cleanse us — all to bring us up to some 
true estimation of our need and of his scheme for 
our redemption — it is then that we gain a wholly 
new conception of our case and of his claims and 



246 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

of our obligations; of what we may do, of wdiat 
we ought to do, of what we fail to do, of what he 
has taught and patterned for us to do, and of what 
(God helping us) we may hope to do, and we cry 
out, " Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands 
and my head." 

And especially, when the divine Master comes 
in his tender love and with his sanctifying method, 
and represents to us the indispensable necessity of 
this daily cleansing to our soul's salvation, and we 
are led to see that if he wash us not we have no 
part with him ; when he shows us how foreign our 
thoughts are from his thoughts, and our ways from 
his ways; what poor conceptions we have of our 
need, how we are swayed by what others say and 
do more than by what he requires; it is then, 
when we see that our dealing must be with him 
as the Judge of quick and dead, and that we can 
not hope to get to heaven except in his prescribed 
methods and by his gracious offices, day by day; 
it is then that we beg for a sanctification of all our 
powers and' all our activities and energies and op- 
portunities — " Lord, not my feet only, but also my 
hands and my head.' , 

But we are prone to misunderstand and misin- 
terpret his dealings and so we object. He comes 
to us in some affliction, and we do not see how it 
is for our cleansing from some defilement of our 
walk, how he comes girt with a towel, comes with 
bason and water, just to do us this loving service. 
We think it all severity. We think it the work 
of a hard master, but it is the work of a faithful 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 247 

friend and servant. We misconstrue the dealing 
altogether. It is some loss, some disappointment, 
some bereavement, some heart-breaking trouble. 
Can it be that this is Jesus come to wash our feet, 
just in order that we may have part with him? Is 
this his voice out of the whirlwind — "If I wash 
thee not, thou hast no part with me?" This trib- 
ulation that unsettles us at our table, that stirs up' 
our nest, that is so full of distress and deprivation 1 
to us, that we can not see the need of it in our 
case, at least that it should come in this form ; that 
altogether contradicts many of our common cher- 
ished ideas of what is good for us ; is this Jesus in 
servant's garb, come to wash our feet for the table 
of the Lord? Then be it so and blessed be the 
name of the Lord. And so understood, then when 
he presses to our lips this bitter cup of sorrow, we 
may hear him say, "This cup is the New Testa- 
ment in my blood; drink it in remembrance of 
me." 

What is the secret of our inefficiency as Chris- 
tians? It is that we erect for ourselves artificial 
and unauthorized standards of duty and we are 
not willing to be undeceived. We cleave to our 
own selfish methods. We take our guage of re- 
ligious living from the fair average around us. 
We want just to stand within the outer edge and 
circumference of the discipleship, so as not to be 
left out at the last day. But we set before us no 
such pattern as Jesus Christ; we aim at no such 
thing as to reach the very utmost of Christian ser- 
vice. It is too much with us a task work, or a 



248 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

formality, and not a labor of love. We are not 
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, as for 
daily food; we are not wholly consecrated in all 
our walk and work, in all our course and inter- 
course; and what is worse, we do not count it 
necessary that we should be. We will wash our- 
selves in our own way and not be washed by Je- 
sus, in his way. 

But this whole matter of personal and habitual 
sanctification, a sanctification which is not merely 
commercial and social, but spiritual and individual, 
involves actual dealing with him, daily prayer to 
him and for his sake and in his name. 

Let us consider what is meant by this sanctify- 
ing of our hands. It is not only to have our hands 
cleansed from actual sin, to have clean hands in 
all our living and dealing — clean from corruptions 
of trade, from fraud and deceit and overreaching 
in daily intercourse ; it is to have all our industry 
and our business turned to the account of the Mas- 
ter. Jesus was a carpenter; and so he sanctified 
all industrial pursuits. He taught us by that lowly 
work at Nazareth how honorable and dignified is 
any industrial calling, if it be pursued in his name 
and in God's service. 

I have stood there in Nazareth, where tradition 
points out the site of Joseph's shop, and I have 
wondered how the hands that touched the bier 
of the widow's dead son at Nam, and stopped the 
funeral train to give the boy back to his mother, 
could have wrought in boyhood at that common 
trade of men; or how the same hands that touched 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 249 

the blind eyes and brought the sight again to the 
dead eyeballs of Bartimeus could have driven the 
nails of the carpenter and handled those rude im- 
plements of the mechanic — the same hands that 
were nailed fast to the cross for us. But the 
greater wonder is, how every stroke of his hum- 
ble trade was sanctified as much as the agony 
of Gethsemane or the winged errand of an angel. 

And this is the true Christian ambition — to have 
all his daily work, whatever he turns his hand to, 
hallowed and consecrated to Christ. 

We all know what it is to be working for par- 
ents or for brothers and sisters; and then, by a 
higher step, we know what it is to be working 
for wife and children in all that we do; and here, 
by a step still higher, to be working for Jesus, in 
all our daily doings — to have all the busy toil of 
the week sanctified and dedicated to his service, 
to have our hands set to no work, however com- 
mon, without invoking his blessing and bringing 
to his feet the well-earned gains. This comes from 
Christ's washing of the hands. 

And then, besides having our business done for 
Christ, to find Christ's business that we can do 
and are called to do — to set our hands to such 
work as we may do for the perishing ; busily gath- 
ering in the wandering, reaching out the hand of 
charity to the destitute, scattering the word of life 
in the Bible or the tract or the Sabbath-school, 
building up the church and supporting the cause 
of Christ in the world ; Christian men toiling, 
Christian women plying the needle in aid of the 



250 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

missionary work, and Christian children bringing 
in their tribute for the service of Christ. This is 
noble. This is what we need. This is what we 
pray for, when we beg that Jesus would wash our 
hands as well as our feet. 

And when the hands are washed by Christ — 
when his divine grace, applied to them, sanctifies 
their doings — then they are opened to deeds of 
liberality and Christian charity. The hands can 
not be washed without being opened. It is not 
possible for Christ himself to wash the hands of 
the close-fisted, without opening them to a larger 
bounty and to a more liberal bestowment of world- 
ly goods for his cause and kingdom. 

Men may take exception to this, may plead that 
this religion is a thing of the heart, and has noth- 
ing to do with the pocket. But look at Zaccheus, 
the converted publican, who recognizes at once 
Christ's claim upon his means. " Behold, Lord, 
the half of my goods I give to the poor." This 
is his profession now. This, he says, is what I 
now propose to do. Not I have done this in time 
past. This would be to boast of what he had been 
and what he had done, which is the farthest from 
his thoughts. So far from this, he proposes to do 
his utmost to undo the past. "If I have taken 
any thing from any man, by false accusation" 
— as he had done, enriching himself by extor- 
tion in the tax-gathering — " I restore unto him 
fourfold" 

And yet more, this higher Christian living calls 
for Christ's sanctifying methods to be applied also 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 251 

to our heads. It is not enough even to have the 
new heart, if that be all. New hands and feet and 
head are needed. Grace in the heart is often very 
slow in reaching to the hands and the head, so as 
to pervade all the active living. Some men cleave 
so to their old notions, do not wish their opinions 
interfered with, dispute minor points, lay claim to 
a large liberty of thinking and action that is not 
directed and dictated by the Gospel. And there 
are imaginations that need to be cast down and 
there are high thoughts that exalt themselves 
against the knowledge of God which need to be 
brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 
And this sanctification of the head is the great 
demand of our day. Free thinking and laxity of 
doctrine work laxity of living. Besides, to have 
the head sanctified involves the cleansing of all 
the senses, as of all the sentiment — the eye sanc- 
tified with all its seeing, the ear with all its hear- 
ing and the lips with all their speech and con- 
versation. This is the high idea of our religion. 
Opinions need to be sanctified. And the daily 
thinking and planning and calculating need to 
be sanctified. And men's pride of intellect and 
selfish claim of judging for themselves needs to 
be humbled, not before mere church authority, 
but before the holy Scriptures and before God. 
And when, like Peter, we are ready to dispute 
Christ's methods of grace, or when we think the 
means of grace which he has appointed for us in 
his w r ord are unnecessary for us; when we think 
that the Bible may be dispensed with or the 



252 NO PERSONAL SALVATION EXCEPT 

prayer-meeting or the Sabbath service or the sac- 
raments, and imagine that we can get to heaven 
without them, then Jesus will insist, "If I wash 
thee not, feet and hands and head, thou hast no 
part with me." 

When you see a man planning for Christ as he 
plans for his business, studying how he can best 
advance his cause and push forward every enter- 
prise for the Master, studying how he can best 
stir up others to co-operate and how he can best 
reach and influence for good the neglected and 
perishing, there you know the head, as well as 
the hands and the feet, has been cleansed by 
Jesus. There you know the sanctifying power 
has gone to the brain and has set all the busy 
thought in motion for care and painstaking in 
the work of Christ. And when you see such a 
merchant or such a mechanic or day-laborer sanc- 
tified in all his activities, from head to foot, and 
manifestly giving himself, heart and soul, to the 
Master, there you see a power in the world ! 

The amount of good that one man can accom- 
plish, when fired by the love of Christ, even though 
his intellect or talents be not great, nor his social 
position exalted, is simply incalculable. Such an 
one as Harlan Page, who used to stand in the 
great city almost alone in the annals of lay-work- 
ers, is having a noble band of successors in our 
day. And the world will never be converted until 
private Christians shall go out to publish the Gos- 
pel in their sphere — until men and women in the 
church membership shall count it their high call- 



BY PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION. 253 

ing to make known this great salvation to the 
world around. 

It was never meant to be the work of the minis- 
ter alone, as one of a thousand, but of the minis- 
ter, as ordained to the holy office, for a leader and 
guide of the people, in this great work. It is im- 
possible that he should bear the burden alone, or 
do justice to the field alone, or make successful 
onset upon the foes of God and man, single-handed 
and alone. The church membership are too much 
excusing themselves, as if they had employed the 
minister for this and could decline the personal re- 
sponsibility of laboring for Christ. But the sub- 
stance of all the commandments is a love to God 
from every man, which shall engage all the heart 
and all the soul and all the mind and all the 
strength. 

And if this is the necessary ruling of God's moral 
law from the beginning, how can there be any less 
requirement under the blaze of the Gospel and in 
the light of the cross of Christ. When the living, 
loving Christ comes down to you and to me, as he 
came to Simon Peter, and claims the privilege of 
washing our feet and sanctifying all our walk and 
all our work, woe to the man who resists — who 
disputes the wisdom, or expediency or dignity of 
such an office. Then he shall hear from the Mas- 
ter, in words like the thunder of the judgment-day 
— "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." 
And blessed is he who will answer — " Lord, not 
my feet only, but also my hands and my head." 



a 



XV. 

MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

And Gallio cared for none of these things." — Acts xviii. 17. 



The progress of the Gospel in the world devel- 
ops individual character. Whether in or out of 
the church, men are sifted and searched by the 
presence of this religion of Christ. Just as a chem- 
ical test will disclose the presence of poison in the 
blood or tissues, even of a dead subject; or just as 
the same test will tell vou of the metal, whether 
it is pure ; or just as the fire will bring the gold, 
glistening in sunny globules, from the dark ore — 
so this divine religion brings men forth to the light 
and reveals their inner selves, and exhibits their 
tastes and affinities. So said the aged Simeon, in 
the Temple, with Jesus in his arms — "This child 
is set for the fall and rising again of many in 
Israel, that the thoughts of many hearts may be 
revealed.'' 

The truth of God in the world produces conflict. 
It is no fault of the truth, but only of the error, 
which it is called to confront and overcome. Con- 
troversy must attend the promulgation of what is 
right amidst a world of wrong, and of what is 
good amidst a world of evil. Men accuse Chris- 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 255 

tianity of all this controversy, not considering that 
it is only the introduction of daylight that battles 
with a world of darkness, and that sends wild 
beasts howling to their dens. It was in this as- 
pect of the case, that Jesus himself said, u Think 
not that I am come to send peace on earth. I 
came not to send peace, but a sword." And yet 
the sword which he wields is plainly in the in- 
terest of universal peace. 

In the apostolic history before us the Gospel was 
making its way, amidst surrounding heathenism, 
from the capital of Judea to the metropolis of the 
world. Look at the characters which are brought 
out at every point, in every city and village ; some 
falling in with its glorious revelations and joining 
the ranks of its publishers and advocates, others 
ranging violently in the opposition, denouncing its 
doctrines and persecuting its friends. In this par- 
agraph that records the success of the Word in the 
Grecian Peninsula, and in the great city of Cor- 
inth, here are Aquila and Priscilla — humble refu- 
gees from Eome — day-laborers at the trade of tent- 
making — becoming converts and boon companions 
of Paul; and there is Apollos, a learned and elo- 
quent scholar of Alexandria, giving his high talent 
to the exposition of the truth, yet sitting at the 
feet of these tent-makers, to hear the word of God 
expounded more perfectly. And here is the crowd 
of false religionists, dragging Paul before a hea- 
then tribunal, while even the heathen multitude 
range on his side, in sympathy with the noble- 
minded, persecuted Christian. And here is Gallio, 



256 MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

the heathen judge on the bench, pronouncing all 
the controversy trivial in the eye of the law, and 
hastily, summarily dismissing it as a mere quibble 
— or logomachy — a dispute of words and names, 
and involving no great question of practical right, 
to be recognized at his tribunal. It is not Gallic* 
as a judge, or an officer of state, with whom we 
have here to do, but Gallio as a representative of 
a prevalent indifferentisrn to whom we direct your 
attention. 

This religion of Jesus Christ is still, in its pas- 
sage through the world, the same as proclaimed at 
that day, only with vastly increased and accumu- 
lating testimonies from all the generations. This 
Christianity presents itself at the bar of every man's 
reason and conscience. And he must give it a hear- 
ing, or drive it from his judgment-seat. The man 
who looks it fairly in the face, and even attempts 
an examination of its claims, and reports adversely, 
and calls himself an unbeliever, for reasons which 
he assigns and vindicates, is nevertheless, on his 
own ground, open to conviction, and may hear the 
case pleaded again at the bar of private, personal 
judgment, and may be won over, eventually, to its 
embrace. But the man who is simply indifferent, 
and can not be detained for a hearing of the case, 
and on one plea or another summarily dismisses it, 
as not a question at his bar, he is the most hope- 
less of all. Infidelity, however it may have en- 
trenched itself with sophistries and fortified itself 
with arguments, is still bound to hear the case 
reargued in open court. But the indifferentisrn that 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 257 

dismisses it altogether, and drives it from the judg- 
ment-seat, puts itself out of the sphere of its high 
doctrines and strong arguments, and may be writ- 
ten hopeless, even beyond its avowed opposers. 

The type of indifferentism in our day is still that 
of the heathen mind, as exhibited in Gallio. This 
man was the brother of the great Koman scholar, 
Seneca, and was held in high repute as a judicious 
administrator and sound thinker. And here, in his 
verdict, that was no verdict at all, is only the high- 
est judgment of Christianity from the heathen point 
of view. And on precisely similar grounds men 
of Christian communities among us, are every day 
dismissing this great subject and banishing it from 
their consideration, and they are thus evincing the 
same heathen instincts and tendencies; they are in 
effect ranging themselves, in their practical judg- 
ment, with this heathen Gallio; they are showing 
themselves, under these Christian influences of our 
day, to have made no advance, beyond that dark 
and dismal age of human thought and religious in- 
quiry in which the world was shrouded in pagan- 
ism. It is all to them as if Jesus Christ had never 
come, as if the light of this glorious Gospel had 
never dawned upon the earth. 

Let us analyze the heathenism here in the case 
of Gallio. His plea for dismissing the subject of re- 
ligion altogether from his tribunal is, that it is not 
a question of wrong-doing, or of actual flagrant 
crime, but a question of words and names, and of 
Jewish law, with which he had nothing to do. So 
says Pilate — "Am I a Jew ? n 
17 



258 MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

Look at the heathenism of our popular litera- 
ture, that treats the subject of religion in the same 
summary way of contempt, ignoring the claims of 
Christianity as a religion of the past or as merely 
the business of its professional advocates — of min- 
isters and of church members — as well enough, per- 
haps, for those who have so committed themselves, 
but as of no consequence for independent thinkers. 
That, as between one religion or another, Judaism, 
Mohammedanism, Buddhism, or Christianity, it is a 
mere question of words, or of names, of definitions 
or of creeds and confessions — but nothing worthy 
any one's painstaking, to unravel the mysteries, or 
to solve the doubts. 

But let it be understood, this is the heathenism 
of our modern thinking — of " advance thinkers," as 
they please to call themselves — who pride them- 
selves on progress, and are only going back to the 
dark and dreary heathenism that had no Christ 
and no hope for eternity to illumine the midnight 
darkness. "If it were a question of ivrong!" he 
says. And this is the heathen morality, that would 
separate right and wrong altogether from a re- 
vealed religion, and would therefore follow brute 
instincts, and fall back upon natural tastes and ap- 
petites as the only rule of faith and practice. Who 
does not discern, through all this mist evolved from 
modern speculation by the conjury of this genius 
of heathenism, all the orgies of idolatry, and all the 
abominations of pagan rites and practices, coming 
back upon us in the new social system ? 

On our frontiers, in our new settlements — away 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 259 

from the constraints of these divine Scriptures, 
where bold adventurers have made their way to 
set up their new systems, and plant the standards 
of their false faith, on the plea of progressive 
thought and liberal doctrine — you see heathenism, 
restored with all the depravities of Mormonism, 
superstition, or spiritualism, in various forms. 

And our polished magazine literature, that af- 
fects so contemptuously to set aside this religion 
of Christ, is simply a revived heathenism. Let the 
writers be adjudged to their proper place. They 
have not anywise advanced beyond Plato, and Soc- 
rates, and Seneca. 

Is it not history ? Was it not long ago put to 
the proof and ascertained — demonstrated in the 
wisdom and providence of God — that "the world 
by wisdom knew not God," that worldly wisdom, 
which in its highest estate, without Christianity, is 
heathen, so far from attaining to the knowledge of 
God, attained to ignorance of God — to Polytheism, 
Pantheism and base idolatry; to flat and outright 
denial of God. And is it not proven most conclu- 
sively, that to blot out Christ and Christianity is 
to blot out the sun from the heavens, and to make 
the knowledge of God impossible to men ? 

If now, we pursue the modern indifferentism 
more closely, we shall find that it is traceable to 
various forms of this heathen prejudice. It is a 
prejudice, which refuses any fair and patient in- 
vestigation of religious truth, which declines any 
earnest study of the documents of our faith, but 
which, just at the threshold of all inquiry, rules 



260 MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

the whole subject out of court — denying the juris- 
diction, resolving it into mere quibbles of lan- 
guage, or disputes of divines, or conflicts of divers 
religions. 

You say you can not deal with these doctrinal, 
theological questions ; if it were a question of right 
or wrong, then you could reasonably judge and 
act. But these are the highest themes of human 
inquiry. They enter into every-day affairs of men. 
Is it not a question of wrong? Great God! what 
is wrong, if it is not wrong to neglect and deny 
thee; and what is right, if it is not right to love 
and serve thee? Conscience — that arbiter within 
you — testifies to the prodigious wrong of neglect- 
ing the soul, and refusing the claims of* God, and 
ignoring the final tribunal, and despising the di- 
vine grace. Is it not a question of wrong, that 
forces itself upon you as responsible creatures, con- 
scious of that responsibility, and even recognizing 
the truth of Christianity, but rejecting its high 
obligations? Even coming hither to the sanctu- 
ary, and receiving its messages, but utterly disre- 
garding their personal application. " What is the 
chief end of man?*' "What is sin?" u What is 
God?" Are not these fair questions? 

This prejudice takes other and peculiar shapes, 
in certain instances. In some one of your minds 
it may define itself as a prejudice against certain 
church members, whom you have known. And 
so, you will have nothing to do with the church, 
or with Christianity. As if a prejudice against 
certain physicians, or quackeries, or against their 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 261 

patients even, should decide you to have nothing 
to do with the healing art of medicine. Can you 
not take a thought further and ask, what you w411 
do when you are seized with some alarming sick- 
ness? All this indifference may answer you to- 
day, while you are well, and so ivell as to think 
foolishly that you can never be sick. But when 
death comes knocking at your door, with all the 
symptoms of fatal malady — what then? All the 
absurdities and inconsistencies of this or that prac- 
titioner, or all your impressions against them as a 
class, or against this or that school of medicine, 
will not hinder you from availing yourself of what- 
ever aid any of them can give you, in your hour 
of awful disease and pain and death. 

Or, you are prejudiced against the sects. And 
you see and hear so much of controversy, and that 
so sharply and shamefully conducted, evincing so 
little of a Christian spirit — one party or interest 
persecuting another, and making party name or 
usage to be more than Christianity itself. The 
doctrine is promulgated that the state is secular; 
that religion has no business with the state, and 
the state has no business with religion. And so it 
is loudly claimed that there shall be no oaths in 
court, no chaplains under the government, no Sab- 
bath legalized, no Bible in the public schools and 
no religion. But this is irreligion— -false religion. 
And this irreligion is sectarian, bitterly and boldly 
sectarian. 

Take all the opposing forces in the great contro- 
versv and is not Judaism sectarian, and Romanism? 



262 MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

And is not infidelity a sect with its organizations, 
its preaching, and its schools? And is this arrant 
heathenism to be rolled in upon us under the guise 
of secularizing our public institutions under the 
state ? God forbid ! 

But, therefore, you will have nothing to do with 
the subject. And is it thus that you set aside 
questions of political party, and great vital ques- 
tions of government ? Will you have no govern- 
ment because some secretaries or Congressmen are 
corrupt? Will you dismiss the whole matter, and 
form no opinion on the case in hand ? Ah ! I see 
you eagerly canvassing the news, eagerly poring 
over the arguments pro and con, and yourselves 
joining in the controversies. And you judge the 
controversies to be vital. And you do not hasten 
to pronounce against the laws of the land, because 
the sense and bearing of them may be sharply dis- 
puted. No! You do not decide for anarchy, be- 
cause government among a free people has always 
led to strife of opinion, and even to conflicts at 
arms! Oh, no! 

But another type of the present prevalent indif- 
ferentism is traceable to mere secularity. 

Business-men are found ignoring altogether this 
momentous subject, because it is not in the line of 
their secular, commercial pursuits. To them it is 
quite an outside matter. No time to attend to it, 
no disposition to take it up. Just as little relish 
for the inquiry as many a farmer or day-laborer 
would have for inquiring into "the chemistry of 
the sunbeam." You rule us out of court therefore. 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 263 

You will not entertain these vital questions. You 
are prone to say, it is a question of words or of 
names, of doctrines or denominations. And, there- 
fore, you are caring for none of the doctrines, and 
you are joining yourself in good earnest to none of 
the denominations. Pity that a man should starve 
because he can not decide what is the healthiest 
food, or should perish in a wreck because there 
are several life-boats launched, and he can not 
choose between them. But you are perishing of 
indifference. 

You say, if it were a question of wrong — that is, 
of wrong such as a business-man has to deal with 
— wrong dealing in trade — or a question of govern- 
ment wrong, of taxes and tariffs, or a question of 
violated mercantile obligations; if it were a ques- 
tion of any such practical moment, then, indeed, 
reason would, that you should bear with us. 

And is this, then, the high service to which rea- 
son is confined, and is this the noble function of 
man's divinest attribute, to occupy itself only with 
the decimal fractions of profit and loss, only with 
the system of trade and banking; to give up the 
immortal soul to buying and selling, until the soul 
itsdf is sold in the markets, as a chattel in the 
shambles? Are these, then, the highest themes 
of thought? And must nothing else claim supe- 
rior attention ? And is it so, indeed, as the term 
would seem to indicate, that, in this secular age 
and among practical men, high intellectual and 
religious speculation is crowded out by speculation 
in the markets ? Will a man rob God ? 



264 MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

The entire substance of many a man's creed is, 
that " Honesty is the best policy," which, analyzed, 
may mean merely that, in the long run, it pays 
best to be honest; that as a stroke of policy it is 
best — is found to turn out best for one's character 
and influence, and standing as a business-man ; but 
that apart from policy it is nothing. We preach to 
you the Gospel of Christ, and you seem to say, 
44 Give us some practical business question and we 
will hear you. But these questions of words and 
names — of justification, adoption, and sanctification, 
of free grace and repentance and God and Christ; 
these questions of religious law, or these questions 
of church — one church or another — where no busi- 
ness interest is involved; we must be excused from 
these." 

And then, indeed, is the church nothing, or worth 
nothing more than the cost? Nothing to the com- 
monwealth and community and city, nothing to 
yourself, and your family? And is not this a 
question of eminent practical account? Does it 
not fairly involve and underlie all business ques- 
tions and calculations? Ye practical men — busi- 
ness-men — I ask you, is not here the great funda- 
mental question of securities, the very bottom fact 
of all bonds and all mortgages and all endorse- 
ments? If you do not save society from rotten- 
ness by this religion of Christ, can you save your 
houses, or your claims, or your goods, or your 
deposits ? 

And what shall I say of this indifferentism when 
it appears in woman — she who, of all the race, is 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 265 

most indebted to this Christianity ; she whose sex 
has been so elevated and adorned by this religion, 
as compared with the heathen society in Gallio's 
time? That woman, made to be clinging and con- 
fiding, as the vine and its tendrils, should repudi- 
ate him who is the great prop of our humanity; 
she that is given over so often to damaging alli- 
ances, that she should disown this man of Bethany 
— this brother, husband, Jesus Christ — and should 
have her heart crushed by human treacheries, for 
lack of such a Partner and Bosom Friend. That 
woman, whose nature and ambition it is to shine 
in society, should disregard God's direction how to 
shine, as the firmament, and as the stars, forever 
and ever, by turning many to righteousness; that 
woman, whose nature is so ready to acknowledge 
and requite favors with hearty gratitude, should 
disdain to confess Christ and his dying love ; grate- 
ful to friends and benefactors, only not grateful to 
this Jesus ; that woman, whose brightest examples 
in history are the Marys, last at the cross and first 
at the sepulchre, whom the dying Lord last recog- 
nized from his cross and to whom the risen Saviour 
first appeared at the sepulchre — that she should 
show no interest in him nor listen to his recogni- 
tion by name; nay, that even with the seal of 
baptism upon her forehead, she should not bow 
to him, nor confess him as her Lord — this is the 
most astounding — that she should bow her conse- 
crated head to mammon, and yield herself a devotee 
to the world, and give up her soul to vanity, till it 
is hardened irrevocably against all the truth of 



266 MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

God and heaven! This is incredible — horrible! 
But it is so! 

And yet the Marys, and the women that fol- 
lowed him from Galilee, and the daughters of Je- 
rusalem, are types of a large class — blessed be 
God! I see hardened men passing by the cross 
and wagging their heads, but the women smite 
upon their breasts, bewailing and lamenting him, 
and they keep guard at his sepulchre, and they 
bring spices to embalm his corpse. 

Alas ! for the woman whose chief ornament, 
amidst all the parade and display of life, is lack- 
ing — must always be lacking — till the soul finds 
its proper affinity and the life its proper radiance 
in Christ Jesus. She can least of all afford to 
bring back upon us the barbarities of heathen- 
ism. And yet, when these great questions of 
Christianity are brought to the bar of her judg- 
ment, I see her often, like Gallio, dismissing them 
from her tribunal as matters with which she has 
nothing' to do. If it were a question of social 
wrong, according to the etiquette and conven- 
tionalities of the day, she would call it reason- 
able to enter into it with zest and interest. 

And is this, then, the debasement of woman's 
reason, in this Christian land, amidst these sanc- 
tuaries? — the reason of the butterfly, to so pro- 
nounce the body more than the soul, grace of 
manner more than graces of the spirit, and Christ 
and the judgment mere empty words and names? 

My hearers, you will bear with us, if we plainly 
declare that all this popular indifferentism of our 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 267 

day, which often prides itself in learning or prac- 
tical wisdom, has its ground in igxoraxce. 

This heathen Gallio was totally ignorant of 
Christianity. And so he most inconsiderately and 
rashly drove these men and all their religious ques- 
tions from his tribunal. And he was even igno- 
rant of the direct and immediate bearing of his 
decision. In deciding to ignore the right, he inau- 
gurated violence and crime. For at once, the mul- 
titude, emboldened by his heathen ruling, rushed 
upon the Jewish leaders, and beat them in the 
very presence of the judgment-seat. And there, 
at once, was a question of wrong and of flagrant 
crime, which it behooved him to recognize at court, 
Only, if you banish religion as a matter of trivial 
concern, then you must entertain the whole list 
of criminal questions, as they rush for adjudication, 
from the mobs of unrestrained violence. 

Look at Pilate, the proud Koman procurator, 
who can have nothing to do with what he deems 
a mere idle Jewish controversy — u Take ye him, 
and judge him according to your law." Pity upon 
his ignorance ! Oh, if he knew that he has Jesus 
in hand, and that this Jesus is the glorious God- 
man, Son of God, the blessed impersonation of 
truth and love and law and order, then, instead 
of wildly asking, "What is truth?" he would have 
clasped him, like the aged Simeon, to his arms, 
and thrown around him the high protection of the 
Roman power. The Scripture itself says, " If the 
princes of this world had known, they would not 
have crucified the Lord of Glory." 



268 MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 

And all this affected advance in science — has it 
discovered indeed that there is no God? It is only 
the fool who says it. And he says it only in his 
heart, ashamed if the profane and blasphemous 
atheism comes up to his lips ! Is this, indeed, 
the dignity of true learning? Is this the noble- 
ness of a highly cultivated and well furnished in- 
tellect? Are these the modern Magi, who come 
to Bethlehem, to turn Jesus out of the stable, when 
he has found no room in the inn? Lord Bacon 
has well said, " A little philosophy inclineth man's 
mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bring- 
eth men's minds about to religion." Sir Isaac 
Newton answered the whole host of free-thinkers, 
when he answered the infidel Halley, in those cut- 
ting words, " I have studied these things, and you 
have not." And so the late Dr. Hamilton pro- 
foundly remarked, " It is easy for a sciolist to be 
a sceptic; but it is not easy for a well-informed 
historian to reject the records of faith." But this 
air of indifferentism is, with many, only the thin 
disguise of a troubled soul. 

Pilate, pacing the judgment-hall — restive, vacil- 
lating, with all his convictions on the side of Jesus, 
and yet swayed by the multitude to give him up 
to death — he is the type of such. Brought by this 
preached Gospel and by all these Christian institu- 
tions and ordinances and influences to confront 
Jesus face to face, they had rather he were oft" 
their hands, rather they had no verdict to render 
in his case. They would give no decision against 
him. They can take no responsibility for him. 



MODERN INDIFFERENTISM. 269 

Any public espousal of his cause they are not pre- 
pared for. They will only, as a last resort, let the 
mob take their course and crucify him, while they 
will wash their hands of the blood! They will 
take no active interest in his cause, amidst the pre- 
vailing clamor of his enemies, and they will flatter 
themselves that they have at least pronounced him 
innocent. 

My hearers, the witness is within you, as part 
of your own souls, that these themes that we 
preach to you are the highest articles of truth, 
most worthy your immediate attention and em- 
brace. Better postpone any other questions than 
postpone these. All other interests are questions 
of names, and words, and of human laws. But 
these are the questions of right and wrong, of 
good and evil, of happiness and misery, of life and 
death eternal. Reason, in the exercise of her high- 
est function, protests that you shall postpone busi- 
ness and postpone pleasure, postpone health and 
wealth, postpone even the claims of home and 
friends, and let the dead bury their dead, while this 
grand, paramount question of the soul and of your 
relations to God shall be settled for time and eter- 
nity. Oh ! when you shall stand before the judg- 
ment-seat of the universe, and shall find it to be 
the judgment-seat of Christ, then — if not before — 
when it is too late, you will care for all of these 
things. 



XVI. 

THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

"Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with 
thy free spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners 
shall be converted unto thee." — Psalm li. 12-13. 

True religion in the heart and life is essentially 
a ivell-spring of joy. However it may have been 
misunderstood hj the world, or misinterpreted even 
by its adherents in this respect, this is still its lead- 
ing feature — that it is a joy forever. Not the mere 
sensational pleasure which is misnamed joy — an 
externa], adventitious thing that comes and goes 
as the sunshine among the clouds — but a living 
principle, a quality of the new nature, which thus 
becomes a vital force and works out its glad results. 

Did not angels, who are the very impersonations 
of happiness, declare it to be good tidings of great 
joy ? And even the Man of Sorrows, who repre- 
sented it on earth, did not he show himself to be 
also the Man of Joys, abounding in a deep, inward, 
inexhaustible peace — a peace that made him calm 
as the summer morning amidst implacable foes 
and in the very near prospect of a bitter crucifix- 
ion? And did he not pass up to heaven in the 
very act of blessing his people with peace — his 
own peace — in the very attitude of benediction, 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 271 

with his high-priestly hands yet extended to indi- 
cate that this was the office- work he would carry 
on in glory — shedding down blessings on them, 
even as "ivhile he blessed them, he was parted from 
them" ? 

Whence comes it that the world will shrink 
away from this Gospel of glad tidings as though 
it were bad tidings— decline its proposals of living 
pleasure and of eternal bliss as though it were noth- 
ing but privation, sacrifice, hardship, tears, and ter- 
rors? Do they not know that Jesus came on earth 
to restore the ruins of the fall ; to drive away fam- 
ine and disease and sorrow as well as sin, which 
is the parent of them all ; to turn our water into 
wine, and to set up in the human breast, the do- 
minion of all that is peaceful and blessed forever ? 

True, there is self-denial to be practised, but it 
is only the denial of the evil self, where the in- 
dulgence would bring pain, or lead into tempta- 
tion, and work alienation from God; and where the 
denial would install a living, permanent pleasure 
in the soul. And so it does occur, that where the 
Prince of Peace enthrones himself in the human 
bosom, there evil passions come to be more and 
more hushed, the tumults and strifes of the breast 
are quieted, and all the faculties are reduced to 
harmony; and the soul, at peace with itself and 
at peace with God, becomes a living instrument 
all in tune, discoursing heavenly music. 

Nor is it by any means a inere future joy which 
the Gospel preaches and which we offer unto men. 
So they imagine it to be who think it is enough 



272 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

if they can snatch a passport to heaven at the dy- 
ing moment. But the joy is meant to be a present 
reality — now — every moment welling up within, 
and only at length, merging into eternal relations 
and projecting itself on an infinite scale. 

Has any one thought that the joy of heaven is 
a mere local joy, belonging to a happy place, and 
that you could just enter in there and find it — the 
melody of sweet sounds, the charm of rapturous 
sights, the bliss of some supernatural ecstasy into 
which the soul is taken up to the third heaven as 
in a trance? And do you mean, then, that if by 
some peradventure, Judas, from his fiendish, de- 
spairing death could just have gotten entrance at 
that golden gateway he would have been made 
"perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God 
to all eternity ?" No. No! 

Have we not seen that you may take a man from 
the street and seat him down amidst the festivi- 
ties of the most joyous circle of earth, where fond 
friends are full of loving and blissful communion, 
and every element of earthly pleasure gushes up 
there to the brim — wealth, beauty, banqueting, 
music, loving tones of friendship — so that the very 
air of the halls is laden with the rapture, and is 
that stranger happy because he has been ushered 
in there ? No. No ! But miserable, just because 
he is a stranger, just in proportion to the contrast 
which he feels in himself to all that friendly com- 
munion of kindred hearts. He is as much already 
thrust out into the outer darkness as though he 
were banished from the brilliant company. Nay, 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 273 

it would seem even a relief to him from the insuf- 
ferable brightness and from the gross contradic- 
tion, if he could but be turned out into the dark 
street again. That was Christ's parable of the 
man without the wedding garment — of the guests 
out of place, miserable. Hence, it is not heaven 
as a place so much as heaven as a state that is rep- 
resented to us in the Scriptures. And therefore, it 
may be, God has not chosen to tell us what glori- 
ous planet he has fitted up with the many man- 
sions, only that it is where Christ is, and where all 
the good and blest in all the universe shall be with 
him forever. 

You must carry heaven within you, in the germ 
and living principle at least, or it will not develop 
itself under any heavenly sky or any celestial in- 
fluence whatever. While it is all of grace yet it 
is only as a man soiveth heaven that he shall also 
reap heaven. It is not the joy of a place for which 
the Psalmist prays in the text. It is the joy of 
God's salvation. 

We need only advert to some of the commonest 
elements of this Christian joy as a joy in God's 
salvation, and it will be seen that it reaches far 
above all ordinary sources of pleasure. 

The joy of a soul at peace within, its own dis- 
cordant principles brought into harmony with all 
that is truly blessed in the universe, having its 
affinity with God, seeking its pleasure in his per- 
fections and having its will attuned to his — this, 
at once, takes highest ground as a great step 
heavenward, and gets the joy already as a life, 
18 



274 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

an inward principle, a quality of the soul. It is 
no longer then a happening, as worldly happiness, 
so called, most commonly is; it is a being — a bless- 
edness in actual, living possession. This is the 
first joy of God's salvation. 

And then there is the joy of pardoned sin. You 
have only to contrast this with the tortures of an 
accusing conscience and you may know what is 
the blessedness of "the man whose iniquities are 
forgiven and whose sin is covered"; who has heard 
the blissful sentence as from the very lips of Christ 
— "Thy sins are forgiven thee. Go in peace." 

This is not the altogether doubting and doubt- 
ful exercise which commonly passes current as the 
Christian hope, with nothing fixed, nothing confi- 
dent, and hence, no rest to the soul, no love, be- 
cause no assurance of Christ's love — no joy nor 
peace, because no security; but it is the sense of 
pardon as a fact founded on the great facts re- 
vealed in the Gospel and surely ascertained to us 
in the record which God hath given of his Son — 
"And this is the record that God hath given to us, 

eternal life, and this life is in his Son 

that ye may know that ye have eternal life." 
Unto them that believe Christ is precious, and 
they to whom Christ is precious, they are true 
believers. The apostle says: "We joy in God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have 
now received the atonement," It is no self-joy, 
no flattering self-gratulation in frames and exer- 
cises that are counted acceptable to God. The 
object is outside of self. 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 275 

This is a high felicity to such that sends one 
singing to his daily business and even to the com- 
mon hardships of life, that emboldens one to lift 
his face toward the heaven and to rejoice in God, 
that quenches a thousand nameless heartburnings, 
distresses, doubts, and banishes a world of fears. 

This is no mere future thing, beginning only in 
the remote hereafter, postponed till eternity as the 
fruit of a life without joy or peace. No ! It sets 
the heart, at once, leaping and bounding in the 
consciousness of pardon. It is not rest alone — nor 
peace alone. It is all these and more. It is a 
well-spring of active, exulting joy! 

And so, thirdly, there is the positive abounding 
joy of the Christian life. /-.-;" 

Think for a moment what is the legitimate bless- 
edness of such a new and heavenly nature in the 
active service of God — calling God Father, mov- 
ing in sympathy with the highest good, and enter- 
ing already into the joy of Christ himself, each 
becoming in his sphere a Saviour. This is it — 
" Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. My 
peace I leave with you" — the peace of the Prince 
of Peace — "that my joy might remain in you" — 
the joy of the exulting, victorious Redeemer, tri- 
umphing over the world, the flesh and the devil 
and entering into his rest. 

And then the joy of Christian trust. The per- 
fect peace of a mind that is stayed on God, the 
peace flowing like a river, with an interest in a 
covenant u ordered in all things and sure," certified 
of all things working together for good, guaran- 



276 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

teed against all real evil even where there may be 
the threatening of it and the seeming of it, as- 
sured beforehand of never having any real good 
thing withheld; though poverty may come and be- 
reavement, yea, death itself, yet by all the divine 
attributes, as God is able to control all elements 
and resources, warranted against the lack of any 
real benefit or blessing whatever — this is another 
element of the Christian joy. Though the trouble 
be great, though it be the sum of all trouble in 
one, yet staying the soul on God, equally as in 
small troubles — in six not onlv, but in seven — 
confident that Christ can bear our great burdens 
as well as our small ones, just as the ocean bears 
on its bosom the stateliest ship as easily as the 
light sea -weed, just as the sun bathes with its 
golden glory the huge mountains as easily as the 
mole-hill 

And then, this living in the atmosphere of Chris- 
tian love, this must needs be a joyous living — a 
most enriching method indeed, by which others' 
joy is entered into and rejoiced in and made our 
own, and so the vast amount accumulates, by this 
power of reduplication, until there is absolutely no 
limit to which the mighty aggregate can be con- 
fined, but the soul has seemed to enter into the joy 
of every other happy ransomed soul, and has risen 
even to share the joy of the great Ransomer himself. 

What wonder that such an one attains, under 
God, to the sublime power of rejoicing in tribula- 
tions also! That seems only a rude act of violence 
where the bow is drawn over the cords of the 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 277 

stringed instrument. But then you see the artist 
with the other hand quietly touching the several 
chords as if knowing just where the music lies. 
And this brings forth from the mysterious depths 
the most exquisite melodies, even under the rough- 
est sweeping of the strings. 

And then, not only to be living in the constant 
sense of pardon and deliverance, but beaming in 
the smiles of God, and sharing in the felicity of an- 
gels' work, and looking forward all the while to 
this pleasure in perfection — the holiness without a 
spot, the blessedness without a limit or interrup- 
tion forever — this is the Christian's joy. All this 
and more is comprised in the joy of God's salva- 
tion. All joy of earth does merely hint of this and 
somehow image it forth. It is the joy of infancy 
reposing on the parental bosom, the joy of youth- 
ful ardor and vigor in a glad service, the joy of 
the student solving his problems and drinking in 
knowledge to the depths, the joy of the merchant 
buying wine and milk without money — seeking 
and finding goodly pearls, the joy of the soldier 
covered all over with the laurels of daily victories, 
the joy of the shipwrecked mariner picked up from 
the boiling deep and riding beautifully into port, 
the joy of the prodigal son welcomed home. 

And now, I say, all this exulting, abounding joy 
belongs of right to every believer, as a rightful 
partaker of God's salvation. It is a blissful experi- 
ence that he is warranted and invited to enter into. 

But while I say this, I know full well that many 
have it only in a very inferior degree. They have 



278 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

never as yet read properly the Gospel warrant, and, 
therefore, they have not entered into the full sat- 
isfaction. As if one had his warrant to draw a 
million pounds and had read it as being only for 
others and not for himself, or for himself only on 
some impossible condition, or only in some other 
frame and experience; or as if he had read it as 
being for a hundred pence instead of for a million 
pounds and, therefore, had gone starving in the 
very lap of privilege — rich, but not knowing the 
fall fads of his heritage and, therefore, not abound- 
ing in the joy. 

So, I know, there are others, and many of them, 
who have once been possessors of this joy, but have 
lost it. 

• Look at this language of the text ! Here is the 
man after God's own heart, contemplating for him- 
self a work of aggressive piety in the world, but 
his soul is paralyzed and his path is darkened by 
sin. How can he preach peace to others when his 
own breast is not at peace! How can he celebrate 
the glad salvation when his iniquity, like a spec- 
tre, rises up before him, and confronts him at every 
step ! How many a sublime and joyous psalm 
has he sung in glowing numbers, rehearsing God's 
praises in the ear of the worldling and wayward ! 
But his mouth is silenced now to all this ! He has 
sinned! And now, he can only wail out his bitter 
relentings into the ear of the God whom he has 
wronged. The world scoffs at him and will take 
no warning at his lips. What can he do ? He 
would fain teach transgressors God's ways, but he 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 279 

himself is now a transgressor. What must he have 
for this aggressive piety on earth ? What element 
of Christian life is it that he most intensely craves 
and for which he cries out in the agony of his 
soul ? It is joy— Christian joy — the joy of God's 
salvation! How can the blackened prism reflect 
the sun-ray? But only let it be clear, so that 
God's own light can enter into it and penetrate 
its whole substance, and then, from every side 
and angle of its surface, it Avill give out from its 
crystal depths not only the light, but that light 
divided and distributed in all the beauteous colors 
of the rainbow. 

I know not what was the style of your first love, 
or your early joy in God — but ivhere is it, even 
such as you then had? What has quenched it 
that you now have lost the bounding step and 
eager purpose and go no longer singing to your 
daily duties in the blessedness of God's salvation? 
It may be some secret sin that is slowly eating 
out the life of your piety. It may be that this is 
why you have no open, cheerful, outspoken utter- 
ance for Christ — that you have cherished some vile 
passion, or have omitted daily Christian devotions, 
or have absented yourself from the places of spirit- 
ual refreshing, and thus you may have wilfully lost 
all sweet and holy communion with God. I only 
know that, for the most part, such a joyous, exult- 
ant piety is sadly lacking from among us. Your 
faces are lighted up with other and fickle pleas- 
ures, rather than irradiated all the year long with 
this glory of the divine life in the soul. 



280 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

Come up now and understand your privilege. 
You own every thing in Christ if you own any 
thing in him. If you are a Christian, then all 
things are yours — the world is yours, life is yours, 
death is yours, things present are yours, things 
to come are yours. And if you are not a Chris- 
tian, nothing is yours, nothing. Only wake up to 
consider wdiat you might have, ought to have, 
must have, to enter fully into the great salvation, 
and then come up to the mercy-seat asking to get 
hack what you have shamefully lost — that heav- 
enly transport that once was yours, that luxury in 
doing good, that peace flowing like a river, that 
joy in God, that glorying in tribulations even, and 
that bright and blessed earnest of heaven. Ask 
to get it back. You need it — you can have it ! It 
is only the son asking for his father's bread and 
bounty, as he comes in, sick of the husks. 

If it be indeed some master sin that has enslaved 
you, that has made the precious promises distaste- 
ful and heaven itself to you no longer as a prize to 
be gained, or a crown to be won ; if you are just 
sitting, as the son of such a Parent, satisfied among 
the swine, there is yet left to you this one grand 
resource — the Father's house and heart. You are 
a son, even though a prodigal son, and you have 
just to be up and return, with your soul full of 
confessions, and you shall yet be received to that 
Father's bosom as a son and be welcomed to the 
son's share in the Father's bread and bounty. 

And, already you are anticipating the change 
which such abounding Christian joy would work 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 281 

in your daily living. The joy of the Lord is your 
strength. How it would needs show itself as a vital 
force, prompting you to a bold and joyous profes- 
sion of Christ in all your living, and lifting your 
banner to the breeze — not ashamed of Jesus, not 
backward but forward in duty, not listless but jubi- 
lant in the proper aggression of the church upon 
the world, like a triumphant banner — doing just 
what you have so egregiously omitted in the proper 
publishing of his Gospel to fellow-sinners. 

For such a brimming joy would be in itself a 
Gospel sermon. That sunshine of the soul would 
reflect from a thousand points the sun. It would 
sit on the face like a beam of glory from the skies. 
It would lift up its banner inscribed with the name 
of a covenant God. So it would march to every 
new conflict, rejoicing in the Captain of Salvation. 
It would sing out, in the bounding step, full many 
a gentle, gracious Gospel message, and would go 
to others as melting i$iusic where you might not 
speak a word. 

The silent, unconscious influence of such a heav- 
en-lit life is powerful. It is often more than argu- 
ment. It is the mute testimony, like that which the 
stars give to the power and love of their Creator, 

" Forever singing as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine." 

I have seen it — where a Christian man has 
walked the street with his head erect and his 
countenance aglow with a cheerful piety, seeming 
to go shining and singing, like the sun in his daily 



282 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

course, and I have taken that to be a living dem- 
onstration which no sophistry can break down or 
dare dispute. I know not how else the face of 
dying Stephen was sunny and beaming, "as it had 
been the face of an angel," unless it were by this 
radiance and glow of the martyr joy that already 
sat upon his brow. 

And then, you need to crave also tlie upholding 
of God's/ree Spirit, that sweetly stirring agency in 
the human bosom which, at the same time that it 
makes the soul buoyant with a conscious freedom 
and gives it alacrity for every good work, freely 
upbears it from all stumbling. God's free Spirit 
which is in utter contradiction to the spirit of 
bondage and fear — a spirit of filial confidence and 
filial love that can not be hampered by doubts and 
restraints, but plants itself in the facts of Christ's 
finished work, and walks at liberty — free as air, 
this you must crave as the living source and sus- 
tainer of your joy, that you may not fall any more 
into the bondage of some evil passion, or of some 
foul accusation of Satan, but may stand fast in the 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and 
daily go forth to duty as the freedman of Jesus 
Christ — for, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there 
is liberty," and the fruit of the Spirit — that which 
it brings forth in the Christian heart and life, as 
naturally as the vine brings forth its clusters — the 
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. 

And, secondly : Such an abounding joy will nat- 
urally express itself in word and action — "Out of 
the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh;" 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 283 

and one who is revelling in trie divine pleasures 
will needs make it known. 

This inward pressure, this divine and loving con- 
straint, will set one publishing the Gospel to those 
who also might be gladdened by the good news. 
This Gospel makes the tongue of the dumb sing. 
And the singing becomes an eloquent proclaiming 
of the message, in the very style of the angels; 
not prosy, not gloomy, but joyous; not harsh, but 
melodious. 

This was probably the strain in which the mul- 
titude broke out in that remarkable gift of tongues 
at Pentecost — all reciting in high and jubilant 
measures the wonderful works of God. And, while 
their full souls exulted in the praises of his life and 
death and resurrection and ascension, that Gospel 
song carried with it a double power with the hear- 
ers. It was their' testimony, and it was their joyous 
testimony. It was tidings — it was glad tidings, 
and it was glad tidings of great joy, rehearsed by 
glad tongues. 

And it would seem that these joyous demon- 
strations are what the church may look for again, 
and at once, as the signs of the Spirit's work and 
the means of his further working. And men shall 
come together again, at such outbursts of God's 
people, and say: "How hear Ave every man in our 
own tongue in which we were born, declaring the 
wonderful works of God." 

Ah! It is the dull, sluggish, heavy tone of for- 
mal prayer and praise that makes the testimony 
powerless. We do not abound as we ought in 



284 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

praises — private, domestic, social, public praises of 
God. The " hosannas languish on our tongues 
and our devotion dies." And then, what wonder 
that the highest doctrine palls on the ear of the 
multitude, and the weightiest truth carries no con- 
viction at our lips? Are we aiming to be only 
"proper" Christians, when souls of men are at 
stake? Is it only the genteel air and manner of 
devotion that we seek, afraid to venture a word 
with a perishing fellow-sinner aside from the rule 
of propriety we have laid down for ourselves? As 
though the command of God to us were just to 
make as little stir as possible with our religion, 
and to tell no man of him! As though the oath 
by which we had bound ourselves in the church 
aisle were an oath to keep the profoundest secrecy, 
lest this rich mine of God's treasure might be dug 
by too many. 

Give us the abounding joy, as a new baptism of 
the church, this holy anointing with the oil of the 
guest chamber and the banquet of Christ, and then 
the publisher will go forth — they can not help it 
— just as the whole array of the starry heavens, as 
they go out on their bright and gladsome courses, 
go singing as the^y shine; just as all the daughters 
of music that throng the forest, while they sing 
out their own joys, are publishing God's goodness 
and glory in the spring-time. 

And so, finally: this abounding Christian joy 
will give a freeness and freshness and heartiness 
in the divine service. Trammels, hindrances, re- 
straints will be broken through. The soul that 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 285 

lias been long sluggish and could not move in 
any work of evangelizing others, will take to the 
wing and rise above all common barriers. 

It is time to have done with the cold constraint 
of mere law and duty in the divine service. There 
must be a higher, nobler impulse if Ave would 
please God or prevail with men. We need to 
feel the stimulus of Christ's love to us, with all 
its overpowering force. We live too near the day 
of glorious revelation, we border too closely upon 
the coming of the Son of Man, and the coming in 
of the full and eternal salvation, to be utterly hold- 
ing our peace. We need now to be catching the 
animation of the other side, to be hearing the 
music of the celestial city, as we near the shores, 
"for now is our salvation nearer than when we 
believed." 

And many of us have lived long enough at ease, 
and idle in the church, if we are ever to do any 
good and great thing for God and for souls. I 
know no other remedy for all the shameful dul- 
ness and apathy of the time than just to get back, 
at least, the joy of God's salvation that we once 
had, and then to get it increased till it shall be 
full to the brim and overrunning — the joy that 
belongs of right to the salvation in every case — ■ 
and then you, yourselves, can well imagine with 
what alacrity, cheerfulness and zest you would go 
singing out your testimony to the power of God's 
grace. And the glad hosannas would no more lan- 
guish on your tongue, and then your labor with 
others would be a shining success. Sinners would 



286 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

throng to join the bannered ranks, they would be 
professing Christ, as they are not now, while no 
song is on your lips, no sunlight on your counte- 
nance, no singing in your step, no banners lifted 
up in triumph, and no music in your heart and life. 
They would come flocking around your standard, 
longing to enter into your joy and into your ser- 
vice of song, and to be sharers with you of the 
great salvation. Your life would accost them as a 
hymn of praise to Christ, ten thousand times more 
melodious and winning than all the most ravish- 
ing arts of formal worship. It is in such a glad 
array that the church w r ould go forth, " clear as 
the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army 
with banners." And this would be the glad work- 
ing. You w r ould be telling your joys and others 
would be asking after the like joys for themselves. 
They that hear you singing, in all the round of 
your living devotions — " Nearer my God to thee," 
will echo the strain, " nearer to thee." 

And now, my brethren, consider in this light, 
the duty of Christian joy. 

You think of it as a rare privilege which you are 
denied, which belongs perhaps only to the far-off 
heights of Christian advancement, where they get 
upon the last round of the ladder and step on the 
threshold of heaven. But heaven is not a definite 
distance off, like the sun or moon. You can bring 
it as near as you will. But you do not apply your- 
selves to the duty of heavenly joy. And so you 
go, getting only at best the occasional thrill of a 
pleasure which is your lawful heritage. And so 



THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 287 

you are cramped in your activities and cold in 
your devotions. Would you not already begin the 
celestial anthem, "Worthy is the Lamb, that was 
slain?" 

In the economy of grace, God's children are 
commanded to go along, singing to their daily 
work Even the martyrs go to the stake hymn- 
ing the praises of their Redeemer. And it is Satan 
who tells you that if you are a Christian you have 
no right to smile and be buoyant. And just by 
such a foul falsehood he cuts the nerves of your 
exertion. Christian joy seeks expression in Chris- 
tian work, and the work again brings revenues 
of joy, and this constitutes the bright circles in 
which the Christian goes through his round of 
duty. And so, along all the ranks of Christ's army, 
goes the command — u Rejoice in the Lord always; 
and again I say, rejoice." 

Why should not the church, even while it is mil- 
itant, lift up her standard in the name of her cove- 
nant God, and peal out her stirring music as a glad 
testimony of the glad tidings, instead of marching, 
like a captive host, with arms reversed and drums 
muffled and banners trailing in the dust? Shall I 
say, God asks for a revenue of glory from the re- 
joicings of his children? And Jesus pronounced 
his blessing upon the infant voices when they 
made the old temple ring with his praises. To 
him one such burst of hosannas was more than all 
the majestic orchestra of the temple. That, he 
said, is praise perfected out of the mouth of babes 
— that is strength ordained from lips of sucklings, 



288 THE JOY OF GOD'S SALVATION. 

that has power to still the enemy and the avenger 
more than an armed host. 

The more we drink the cup of Christian joy, the 
more do we obey the divine injunction. And this 
at once sends us on our way publishing the great 
salvation just by giving expression to the joy of 
that salvation. So that the work of the Christian 
life is essentially cheerful and, so far from being 
a drudgery, it is not only a luxury, but a high 
necessity. 



XVII. 

EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

"If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he 
shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he 
shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." 
— I Cor. hi. 14-15. 

Every man is a builder, whether he will or not. 
Some fabric he is erecting busily, day by day, at 
all seasons and by all means. He is laying his 
hand to a work of some sort, and silently and 
steadily it goes up to its completion — the result 
of all his thought and all his activity, the expres- 
sion of all his character. 

Noah was the builder of an ark, according to the 
divine direction, which was to be his ark of refuge 
and his home of safety to outride the deluge of 
God's wrath. By that work, it is said, he con- 
demned the world of foolish builders and false 
builders who rear no ark for eternity. 

The Psalmist celebrates the coming Messiah as 
the stone which the builders refused and which 
was to become the head of the corner — the chief 
corner-stone in the true temple of God. And then, 
farther, Jesus is declared by the prophets to be a 
stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure 
19 



290 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

foundation for every man to build upon for eter- 
nity. And then, when Jesus himself came, he 
spake a parable to show the consummate wisdom 
of building one's house upon a rock, because that 
house is to comprise a man's dearest interests, it 
is to be the sacred enclosure of his home. The 
hearth-stone of his domestic life is to be there, the 
circle of his children. And by all that there is 
centred, of most surpassing value to him, must be 
the arrant folly of building his house upon the 
sand. 

A day of trial is coming, my brethren. It can 
not always be sunshine and peace. There must 
be also stormy tests and fiery tribulations. Tem- 
pests will blow that will rock the building to its 
base. Fires will burn that shall consume all that 
is combustible about it. 

The apostle is speaking, in the text, of the differ- 
ent structures which men may erect upon the one 
only true foundation. 

He is speaking, primarily, of ministerial buiWlers, 
whose function it is to set before men the one only 
foundation for them to build upon, or, as under 
workmen to carry up different parts of the great 
spiritual temple in the world. They may build 
into the wall, he says, various materials of doc- 
trine or of membership — either the precious gold 
and silver and the splendid stones of porphyry and 
jasper such as form the foundations of the New 
Jerusalem, or they may build into it the merest 
rubbish of error and of false profession, which the 
fire will utterly consume. 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 291 

But the principle applies no less to church mem- 
bers than to ministers, no less to private build- 
ers and buildings than to public ones. Individual 
Christians may be building various structures even 
upon the same Jesus Christ as a foundation. This 
is also the teaching of the text. 

First, then, we learn that it is not enough for a 
man to have his hope in Jesus Christ. 

One must build upon him to get the advantage 
of the foundation which he is, to be resting upon 
no other. This is rather a negative thing. To be 
resting one's hope upon Christ so far as one has 
any hope, this is not enough. Is there, in such 
case, any hope at all, properly so called — under- 
stood as compounded of desire and of expectation 
also? Many an one in the church has no hope, be- 
cause that which he calls a hope has no element in 
it of expectancy. It sets its telescope to no glorious 
world of light; it deals with no daily evidence and 
has no habitual substantiation of the things hoped 
for, as a true faith is wont to substantiate them. 
You might say that such an one has Christ for 
his foundation, but for the foundation of ichat? 
No building is seen going up and daily develop- 
ing its Christian proportions under the workman's 
hand. 

What then? This foundation, w^hich is Jesus 
Christ, is not alone the doctrine of Christ as the 
Messiah, nor is it alone even the doctrine of his 
finished work; much less is it a mere church con- 
nection. It is all this and more. It is the per- 
sonal, living Jesus Christ himself, just as he claims 



292 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

to be the personal, living Way, and the personal, 
living Truth, and the very personal Life itself 
And so it is not possible to have this foundation 
lying idle and unoccupied, as you may see some 
deserted foundation that lies awaiting for a long 
time its superstructure, and so is wasting away 
under the power of the elements and going to 
dilapidation. No ! Jesus can not be such a foun- 
dation, just because he is a personal, living founda- 
tion — as a vine can not be for long years without a 
branch, because it is a living vine. It is a foun- 
dation that "groweth unto a holy temple in the 
Lord." 

Observe, secondly : Jesus Christ is to serve a man 
as a foundation to his building. 

The first question is, as to whether he will build 
on the rock Christ Jesus, or on some shifting sand ; 
whether he will carry up his life-long work on the 
solid basis of Christ's finished work, or whether lie 
will choose some sea-beach for his location, where 
the dashing surf shall rise and sweep away both 
the house and the foundation itself. He can not 
escape being a builder, and here is the gracious 
provision — to have this massive, immovable foun- 
dation-work all readv to one's hand, all its outline 
determining the ground plan of the structure — 
tower and buttress and doorway — all marked out, 
so as that he has only to follow the base-line in 
carrying up the walls, and then to have the pre- 
cious corner-stone binding together the walls them- 
selves that rest upon it. 

And, if he have even chosen Christ to build 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 293 

upon, then it is still for him to take heed lioio 
he builds upon him. For, still, the superstructure 
may be very inappropriate to the foundation. The 
man may dream that all is well if he put up any 
worthless fabric upon so goodly a base, or if he 
put up none at all. But the fabric ought to be 
such an one as is worthy of the base, else it will 
stand condemned by it. The foundation is given 
him not to dispense with his own labor, but just 
to invite his labor upon such a noble ground-work ; 
not to be all the work, but the fundamental part 
of the work. And so the edifice is to rise under 
the builder's hand as a Christian fabric, in all its 
beautiful and comely proportions ; always outlined 
and stayed and supported by this living, substan- 
tial foundation, which is Christ Jesus. 

Who can estimate the grace that presents to 
every man such an advantage of grounding him- 
self upon Jesus, upoir his perfect merit, upon his 
finished work, so that he may have his house go 
up upon the Rock of Ages — sure of standing firm 
amidst the flood and unshaken by the wreck of the 
globe. Think of having it freely granted to a poor 
sinner to build upon him whose goings forth have 
been from of old — from everlasting. And then to 
build after his pattern and model so as to have the 
building shaped and outlined by his own human 
example. 

And then, further, to feel that he has a plan for 
each of us. So that he stands the supervisor and 
architect of our own personal structure, and his 
great thoughts of love are daily working in prov- 



29± EVERY MAN HIS OWX BUILDER 

idence t guide and shape the fabric tha: Lb g ing 
up under our hai- ifi afl cur life-work for eternity. 
And, then, : have his finished work that w 
laid deeply in the counsels :: Godhead serve us 

d ~ onlv as the substratum, but ah the crown 

■ 

of glory of our work. All that work of toil and 
suffering and tears and blood to build upon and 
glory in. from base : topstone of our edifice: all 
tha: precious gracious work which he became in- 
carnate to accomplish, and whose history is writ- 
ten in th: pel of grace to have it all made 
yours and mine — to be applied mos: freely — ah 
building made our building, as if it were our own 
handiwork, when i : :rion and stability and 
everlasting worth are such as that all the an e — 
could never have achieved it. 

And. then, to know, of a surety that buildino: 
upon Christ you are certain of your foundation 
standing firm, even though your poor tenement 
which you built should be swept away by the 
flood or wrapt in the final conflagration. Oh ! 
This is infinite grace, that should induce a man 
— rvery man — to build upon this Bock of A_ 
whatever else he does, or fails to do; and how 
poorly soever he may have built upon it. 

And now. e. thirdly: It is possible even 

for a Christian man to build upon this goodly foun- 
dation the merest rubbish. We speak now as to 
the material 

Take the whole class of careless, inanimate. 
obi; worldly Christians, where your charity 

utmost limit in .ike 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 295 

tbem in — the whole crowd of border Christians, 
negative, lukewarm, half-way, inefficient. They 
are doing certain Christian deeds of worship and 
of Sabbath service, and, so far, they may seem to 
come within the outermost circumference of the 
living membership. Their activity 'professes to be 
Christianized, but it is not. They repeat their 
vows of consecration. They make, so far, a cred- 
ible profession — that is, not absolutely incredible. 

But what is the sum total of their Christian 
work ? Even the Sabbath, with its poor half ser- 
vice, may be already a drudgery. What would 
the great Inspector, the chief Architect, say of 
their building — of its design, its proportions, its 
symmetry, its advancement ? What of the mate- 
rials and the workmanship — what of it taken as 
a progressive whole? It is ivood, hay, stubble, a 
house of boughs and reeds for walls and roof, a 
mere summer-house, a toy-house for the children, 
as if never dreaming of making it a substantial 
structure for residence — much less fire-proof. 

What now, my brethren, are the materials which 
are daily building into your walls and forming part 
of your life structure ? 

See the unsubstantial refuse which goes into so 
many of these buildings — the unsettled doctrine, 
the irresolute purpose, the inconsistent behavior, 
the rush of worldliness, the inactivity and ineffi- 
ciency in religious duty, the dead wood of dead 
works, the straw of empty profession, the stubble 
of misconceits and of ill-tempers and delinquen- 
cies. No plan, no selection of material, no archi- 



296 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

tectural execution, and hence, no building that is 
substantial enough to hold together in a storm, 
much less to resist the fire. How poorly does all 
this befit the glorious and costly foundation ! How 
few have wrought any thing that abides, any thing 
that you can find when they are gone ! How few 
have left any monument behind them ! Show us 
where, among the circles of professed builders, is 
some ark going up like Noah's, or some altar of 
sacrifice like Abraham's? How many live with 
their names on the roll of the church, but of whose 
work in the church there is nothing at all to men- 
tion, not so much as a scarlet thread hung out 
from the window like Bahab's in the service of 
God's messenger! 

If there be no plan, nor principle, in the relig- 
ious living; no earnest estimates of daily duty, no 
systematic and proportionate giving and praying, 
no care nor painstaking to make the most of one's 
time and the most of one's talent and the most 
of one's opportunities in God's service and in the 
work of the church ; if all the man's wit and fore- 
thought and art and busy industry be applied to 
his secular business; if he have not yet learned 
the secret of carrying his religion into all his pur- 
suits — being diligent in business yet, withal, fer- 
vent in spirit, and in all things and by all means 
serving the Lord — then I see how that man's build- 
ing must be a careless huddling together of life's 
trash and refuse in his religious undertakings, a 
vast pile of rubbish, a building of odds and ends 
— every thing at random, wood, hay, stubble, hap- 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 297 

hazard — and all of it the light, combustible stuff 
which blazes at the touch of fire ! 

We learn, accordingly, in the fourth place, how 
even a Christian man may be but barely saved. 

At the day of final revelation which shall make 
every man's work manifest, such a foolish builder 
as we have named shall suffer loss — an awful loss 
— by being stripped of all his work in the fiery 
trial. I would have you reflect, my brethren, that 
it is possible for a Christian to be barely saved — 
saved so as by fire. 

Will any one say that this is all he asks, to be 
saved at last, however narrowly escaping eternal 
destruction? But who can tell the loss! It may 
be the difference between parlor and attic or cellar. 
Let none imagine that all they need for their house 
is a foundation, however good, however splendid. 
Let no man think that even the finished work of 
Jesus Christ is enough for him, without any work 
of his own going up upon it. The foundation calls 
for the corresponding superstructure — demands it, re- 
bukes the lack of it. And the day is coming when 
a severe ordeal " shall try every man's work of ivhat 
sort it is. 11 

I see many a man satisfied with being in the 
church, professing to have Christ for a founda- 
tion, but no building going on there ; making 
little account of daily religion — planning nothing 
for Christ, not striving to live after Christ, not 
building upon Christ; deluded with the idea that 
his future is safe, because he has a theoretical faith 
and hope in Christ, or an outward church connec- 



298 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

tion with nothing practical and personal ; not ask- 
ing how a mere foundation will answer when he 
needs a house for shelter and refuge, or how it will 
go tvith Mm if, in the fiery day, his house be found 
to be of light, combustible stuff which the flame 
shall instantly devour; especially not considering 
that he may have been all the while building that 
house on the sand. 

That day shall call for solid work, for massive 
masonry, for results of hard day-labor and sweat- 
ing toil of the builder — and all this on the one 
only foundation, Jesus Christ. It will be a day 
of searching analysis, of universal, awful manifes- 
tation. Then shall be plainly disclosed just how 
much every man has done, and just how little; 
and what sort of work it is, and how far it has 
justified the reasonable expectations, from such a 
foundation as is laid in the Gospel and professedly 
chosen by every Christian man. 

I see some — many — who will be able to show 
nothing in the shape of a building which will 
stand a moment's test of that last fearful day. 

How inexorable the fire is in its devouring appe- 
tite for all that light and empty material! How 
in one instant that ark of rushes has vanished 
and nothing is left where all that pride had been ! 
Yes. Even the Christian man may be barely saved 
• — as a brand plucked out of the burning, after the 
fire had fastened upon it already, so as to begin to 
blacken and char it — barely saved ! Almost lost ! 
Like Lot, saved only at the hardest, only out of 
the jaws of perdition, only by the special urgency 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 299 

of good angels at the last moment; only at the 
very side of some pillar of God's wrath, where his 
own wife, almost saved, is lost after all. 

This being saved yet suffering loss — the man 
himself saved but saving nothing with him — is as 
where one has barely escaped from a burning tene- 
ment with his life. His very skin is shrivelled by 
the flames. Estimate the loss, if you can, where 
the Christian is barely kept out of the perdition 
that overtakes all that he has built; where it 
would seem he must stand for his eternity on 
the hot edge of the fiery gulf; just as where one 
stands amidst the gases and steam of Vesuvius, 
on the very brink of the crater, having only to 
think, with trembling awe, how he has just so 
narrowly escaped being swalloAved up in its yawn- 
ing abyss of fire ! 

Is this a result worthy a Christian's ambition, to 
stand at last, like a man whose dwelling is burned 
over his head and who is driven out, naked and 
homeless, into the streets, only not himself con- 
sumed, yet stripped of every thing but his life? 
This is the case of a Christian man who has no 
substantial Christian building to show at last; noth- 
ing, save the Christian foundation upon which he 
built his house of straw. There were only fitful 
and random efforts of piety — scattered deeds of 
Christian charity — nothing systematic, habitual, 
day by day, as the day-laborer, and hence no com- 
pleted and consistent edifice at last, as the result 
that is worthy of the name. He has no work that 
can stand the test, nothing that can abide as a 



300 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

building, and the awful loss he suffers is that of 
every thing but existence itself. It is one thing to 
be snatched from the endless burning as a charred 
brand; but oh! it is quite another thing to have 
an entrance ministered abundantly into God's ever- 
lasting kingdom. 

Look now at this opposite case in the text — at 
the Christian man whose work abides, who is abun- 
dantly saved — saved with his house and his house- 
hold, saved with all the goodly and beautiful and 
stately and substantial fabric he had built on Jesus 
Christ. 

Observe, there is the daily work on this building. 
No day that something is not done to advance the 
structure. Every thing that is wrought at home 
and abroad, on Sabbaths and week-days alike, is 
made to contribute to the glorious fabric. 

And so the work goes on everywhere, just as the 
carpenter is making the doors and windows of the 
house far off in his own factory, or as where the 
iron front of a store is casting away in the distant 
foundry. The religion of that man is carried into 
daily life and, just as the fire converts the clay into 
the hardest brick for the building, so his religion 
has this converting power, and his afflictions even 
work this result, giving solid substance to what 
were else only as the dust of the streets or the 
common soil you tread upon. 

And so it comes to pass that some men s build- 
ing material is most costly and rare — is even gold, 
silver, precious stones. Only conceive how exqui- 
site a structure it is possible for a Christian to 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 301 

erect upon Jesus Christ, by little and little working 
into Avails and cornices and capitals the most rich 
and splendid materials, and, here and there, the 
gold and silver ornaments that shall glisten in the 
light of that final revelation — bringing the world's 
art and treasure and making the whole domain of 
wealth and beauty contribute to the work. Just 
as you may see porphyry columns from the great 
temple of Diana wrought into the Christian tem- 
ple of Chrysostom — like the temple at Jerusalem 
itself — its spanning roof overlaid with gold, and its 
pinnacles and turrets pointed with gold, cedar of 
Lebanon for its beams which the worms will not 
perforate, and all the cunning handiwork of Tyrian 
builders applied to make it the most splendid of all 
earthly structures: or like the famed chapel of the 
Medici at Florence, lined with slabs of all precious 
stones — the porphyry and malachite and agate and 
lapis lazuli — all polished to the highest degree, and 
even the tombs dazzling with the rarest glory, and 
that as a family mausoleum amidst the splendor of 
which they lay their household dead. 

Take the life of some of the men whose Chris- 
tian usefulness has left such a splendid memorial 
of Christian works behind them — as that of Ed- 
wards, Whitfield, Wesley, Nettleton — whose acts 
of faith like bars of molten gold, and whose pa- 
tience of hope and labors of love like the precious 
stones of the celestial foundations, have all been 
wrought into an exquisite fabric upon the basis of 
Jesus Christ. We bless God that, in our day, men 
are building monuments, in the shape of Christian 



302 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

hospitals and educational and charitable institu- 
tions, to stand for ages, doing their silent and be- 
neficent work in which God and angels rejoice. 

Look at Leigh Richmond, writing the tract of 
the " Dairyman's Daughter," and by this one act, 
which was only the expression of his Christian life, 
building into his life structure so many polished 
stones, rearing so many pillars in the temple of 
God! See how the building grows upon his hands 
to this day, and seems, at length, to be like some 
fairy mansion, widening and towering more and 
more with each succeeding year of new successes 
to his work ! Long after the builder's head is in 
the dust and his soul in glory the stately pile goes 
up, and the procession of converts from that simple 
story of the cross lengthens, and they keep pour- 
ing in to heaven, where he rests from his labors and 
his works do follow him. You know the founda- 
tion of that structure from the fabric itself- — like the 
Milan Cathedral, bristling all over at the pinnacles 
and turrets with human forms, wrought carefully 
into living proportions, and everywhere embellish- 
ing the gorgeous structure, filling every niche and 
corner, every capital, as so many stately trophies 
of the workman's art, as if aiming everywhere to 
elevate man and thrusting up towards the heavens 
the marble statues of man as types of the true. 

Look at John Bunyan, who might have ex- 
cused himself from any great enterprise of useful- 
ness in the dungeon of Bedford Jail; but, while 
many an inert, lifeless Christian was sorrowing 
that so much power for good should be shut up in 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 303 

a gloomy prison, he had within him a light which 
the prison walls and bars could not confine — 
which streamed out through every cranny and 
crevice. And where God's light and air must come 
in to him, his light shone out in return, and the 
atmosphere of his piety breathed around to en- 
lighten and enliven masses of minds to the last 
day. And since his time, no pilgrim to the celes- 
tial city, who has heard of Bunyan's pilgrimage, 
but walks up Hill Difficulty by the aid of his 
goodly staff, nor passes the wicket gate without 
casting off his burden where Bunyan threw his. 

Observe, my hearers, the work of a Christian 
minister is that of a wise master-builder — to lay 
the foundation upon which the members are to 
build, to set forth Jesus Christ as the rock, and to 
warn men against the sand; to charge men with 
the wisdom of choosing him for a foundation, and 
to warn them against the folly of not going for- 
ward with the building; to beg them push on 
their great life-work and take heed how they build 
as well as where they build. 

And a church ought to be the sphere of utmost 
business enterprise and activity, unsurpassed by 
any thing in the world. Here is the field for the 
noblest exertion of human skill and energy — every 
man working at the edifice which is to be the re- 
sult of his labors for life, and all working together, 
each carrying up some part of the temple of God, 
some one of those noble structures which are to 
form the celestial city — the New Jerusalem. That 
is the city which lieth four-square — which is laid 



304 EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 

out according to divine rule and not according to 
the selfish and tortuous interests and arts of men; 
which calls for conduct that is honest and earnest 
and straightforward, and not shifting and evasive ; 
where you shall not lose your way among the 
windings of deceit, but where every thing is open 
and manifest. 

My brethren, the highest glory of a Christian 
minister is to see the people busily at work, each 
rearing some sightly and substantial edifice of faith 
and love upon the foundation he has laid among 
them ; to watch the proportion of each structure as 
it develops day by day, and to look forward to the 
time when, in that New Jerusalem, he shall walk 
some golden street all lined with rows of stately 
palaces built by his people, each for himself on 
Jesus Christ. 

There is one reflection from this subject which 
bears upon such of you as have not so much as 
professed or attempted to build upon this founda- 
tion. With you it may be the folly of erecting 
some laborious work of a careful morality upon a 
foundation of sand, ignoring the foundation- work 
of Christ; or it may be the recklessness of hav- 
ing only wood, hay and stubble for building and 
foundation together. God himself has asked in 
the Scriptures — " If the righteous scarcely be saved 
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? " 
Grant it, even, that all your criticism of church 
members is just — grant it that often their building, 
as you see it go up, is of mere combustible stuff. 
This only points the question which comes home 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN BUILDER. 305 

to yourself — "If they be scarcely saved 7 ' — if every 
thing of theirs shall be swept away but the bare 
foundation, if this fiery ordeal shall utterly con- 
sume all men's work and leave them stripped and 
suffering such fearful loss, only barely kept out of 
perdition and scarcely allotted a remote corner in 
the heavenly city, then "where shall the ungodly 
and the sinner appear? " 

It is a glorious thing to build on Jesus Christ, 
to have laid even the first stone upon him as 
the chosen corner-stone and sure foundation. It 
is something blessed to build even a booth of 
boughs or rushes upon such a foundation as Je- 
sus. But to reject him, to be deliberately scorn- 
ing this high privilege, to be testifying, by your 
example, that he is worthless or useless for you to 
build upon, that all his work from Bethlehem to 
Calvary and in glory is needless for you, or that you 
have a better ground of hope and conduct for eter- 
nity — what will you answer to him at the final bar? 

I tell you it is better to be a poor Christian than 
to be no Christian; to be a weak believer than to 
be no believer at all; better to be making feeble 
attempts and to have ill success in religion than 
to be building on the sand. But oh! it is best of 
all to be daily building up a fabric which shall 
abide — to be working into it the gold, silver and 
precious stones, to glisten and glow in the coming 
glory more elegant and stately than any mansion 
of earth, which the eye shall delight to rest upon 
in eternitv, and which shall survive the wreck of 
material greatness forever and ever. 
20 



XVIII. 

THE EAGLE'S NEST. 

"As an eagle stirrreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, 
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her 
wings; So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange 
god with him." — Deut. xxxii. 11-12. 

God is the source and pattern of every thing ex- 
cellent in the universe. If there is fondness in the 
paternal relation, if you see on earth any charming 
specimen of what a father ought to be, all these 
qualities have come from God ; and they are only 
at best a dim type and distant hint of what God is, 
in that capacity, when he bids us call him, " Our 
Father which art in heaven." 

If there is any thing endearing in the husband, 
any attribute in such an one, that wins the heart 
beyond all common parallel, there, again, is a faint 
picture of what God is, as he can be but poorly 
represented in such an image of himself — "Thy 
Maker is thy husband." So, we all know that 
a brother "is born for adversity." The God-man 
is our elder brother, and he is the Friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother. And who does 
not know what ineffable loveliness there is for 
us all in a mother; how the name tells of match- 
less fondness, tenderness, watchings, long-suffer- 
ing and faithful care? But this, also, God takes 



THE eagle's nest. 307 

as his favorite resemblance and reminder on earth 
— "As one whom his mother conrforteth, so will 
I comfort yon." 

And so, also, in the vegetable icorld there are 
the pictures of himself. The vine that clambers 
over the latticed porch of wealth and poverty 
alike and hangs ladened with its purple clusters 
is beautiful. But Jesus claims all that is charm- 
ing in it, as only a type of himself and says: U I 
am the true vine." As though these all, in every 
vineyard, on every hill-side and in every garden, 
were only to be understood as the shadows and 
images of the true, himself the genuine, origi- 
nal, archetyped vine, and "ye," he adds, "are the 
branches " ! So, if bread is good — if this, that is 
the food of the starving and the daily nourish- 
ment of the millionaire has any thing excellent 
in itself as the grand staple and staff of life, Jesus 
says, " I am that bread of life." And if, for every 
man's thirst, there is nature's beverage, that has 
the highest power to slake it, so that the king 
and the peasant draw from the same fountain and 
drink at the same stream, Jesus says, as he sits 
by the well-side, where we all have come up with 
our poor pitchers to draw — "I am the water of 
life." And so, also, where along the path of prince 
or beggar, the rose of Sharon blooms, or the lily 
of the valley sheds its fragrance, Jesus says — "I 
am the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Val- 
ley." And fragrance drops from his lips, and his 
ringers drop myrrh on the handles of the locks. 

So if the sun in his daily career is glorious, 



308 THE EAGLE'S nest. 

Jesus still declares, that it is a borrowed splen- 
dor, set in the sky to give us this best of all en- 
lightenment — the knowledge of himself; and that 
he has in perfection, all that is imaged forth in 
that material orb ; for he is the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, and rises upon our darkened and desolate 
souls with healing in his beams. 

And so, even in the animal icorld, he has his 
types — hangs out the pictures of himself to the 
commonest view. His tender care, he says, is 
like that of the hen, gathering her brood under 
her wings. And this constant, busy training of 
his people, in the discipline of daily life, is like 
that of the eagle, with her young in the nest. 
No wonder, then, that a star celebrated his ad- 
vent, that the sun hid his face, and that earth's 
granite rocks rent their bosoms at his crucifixion. 

The picture which the Holy Ghost has given us 
in the text represents a great truth. It teaches 
us God's discipline of his children for an elevated 
Christian life. He will have us comprehend the 
vital idea; and so he will take us out to where 
the noblest of birds builds her nest, on some tall 
crag of the rock, far above the busy haunts of 
men, and he will show us how, with untiring de- 
vice and persistency, she makes it the first great 
business to teach her young to fly. How she dis- 
turbs the nest for this, flutters anxiously over her 
brood to break up their listless repose and set 
them in motion towards herself, spreadeth her 
own wings so that they may catch the idea and 
be led to imitate her actions, and even takes them 



THE EAGLE'S NEST. 309 

up by her own kind force and bears them on her 
wings, if thus, by any means, they may be drawn 
or driven to fly. 

This opens to us, first, the grand secret of life. 
Life is a schooling, a discipline, a preparation for 
another world. God has his children here on 
earth. Some of them are in the church, others 
are not yet gathered in. Some of them are his 
young children, yet in the nest, never developed 
to any maturity. But over them all he busily 
watches, and with them all he constantly deals 
and strives. 

And this is the meaning of our changes. A 
man gets a blow in the dark from an unseen hand, 
and he wonders whether it be an enemy, but finds 
out that it is a friend driving him back from a 
precipice, or from the edge of a pit, into which he 
is just taking the fatal step. We fret and worry 
at our discomforts and clislodgements. Fire, flood, 
tornado wait upon us, to sweep away our goods. 
Bobbers, in many a guise, strip us of our hard- 
earned gains. Sickness reduces our strength, ema- 
ciates our frames and dries up our pleasures; and 
we see ourselves only as the ill-starred victims of 
adversity, and seek as best we can, to run the 
gauntlet of our troubles. And this is life ! Or 
perhaps prosperity waits upon us and all our en- 
terprises are a series of successes, and we add 
house to house and field to field, and call ourselves 
rich and independent, and see not the hand that 
is dealing with us, and learn not the intent of his 
dealings; and this is only another phase ofjifel 



310 THE EAGLE'S NEST. 

But God's hand in our affairs is life's great secret 
— undivulged to so many, who never know what 
helps them or what harms thern or by what great 
powers of the eternal world they are constantly 
influenced and disciplined for their swift-coming 
hereafter. 

Let us look, then, at God's children in the nest 
There is a Christian life that is the very least re- 
move from death itself — the barest infancy of the 
Christian being. And God forbid that we should 
pronounce against whatever can not show the ma- 
turity and manhood of piety. God recognizes his 
infant children and with more than a mother's ten- 
derness waits upon them, and watches over them ; 
bears long with them, for their advancement in 
the divine life. Some have been poorly nurtured 
by their earthly tutors, have been carelessly led 
along, incorrectly taught, never set to work, or 
else crippled by ill-usage of their Christian guides. 
And they are babes long after they should have 
been grown men. They are using milk long after 
they should have come to the strong meat of God's 
mature children. When they ought to have been 
teachers, they have need that one teach them what 
be the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. 

If none but the full-grown, well-developed men 
and women are true members of Christ's family, 
then, alas ! we have but few. How many stagger 
yet at the very gate-way of life, not at all estab- 
lished in Christian doctrine, not knowing, as yet, 
but that their repentance must be in part pay 
when the ransom price is counted ; not certain but 



THE EAGLE'S NEST. 311 

their faith is to save them instead of Christ, or by 
its own virtue and value, rather than as taking 
hold of Christ! And though we teach them a 
thousand times and a thousand ways, there they 
are yet — never venturing out of the nest, never 
trying their wings, never soaring nor learning to 
soar. They are like mariners who have weighed 
anchor, but they never set sail, nor even unloose 
their moorings, nor even get away from port. 
They go no whither, they arrive nowhere. 

But there is another class of God's children in 
the nest. I mean those who are at ease in Zion. 
They are just satisfied to keep a comfortable place 
in the church for slumber and self-security. They 
are taking religion as a secondary thing, not as the 
chief business. They are the sluggish, inactive 
members, who are vigorous and efficient enough 
in traffic and merchandising, shrewd enough in 
making money, and we only wonder at them, how, 
even if they have their daily prayers, even if they 
daily say the Lord's prayer, as their Christian moth- 
er taught them, they could manage to be such 
utter drones in the church. You never see them 
rising high in their devotions, never spreading 
their wings to soar towards God, never abounding 
in any Christian grace, never like the eagle, pierc- 
ing the sky with a steady gaze upon the sun; but 
always grovelling, taking the narrowest views of 
Christian privilege and duty, circumscribing their 
religion within their nest, and, to all appearance, 
not a whit maturer to-day than years ago in this 
divine life. 



312 THE eagle's nest. 

I do not say that such are Christians indeed, 
as they profess to be ; I only know that we may 
stretch our charity so far as to hope for even such, 
that they may be, as yet, like Peter, following the 
Master afar off, until they should be drawn out to 
a new style of Christian living. I see such evi- 
dently satisfying themselves with the comforts of 
this world, and not looking for a better country, 
that is a heavenly; folding the cloak of a Chris- 
tian profession around them and wrapping them- 
selves up in worldly prosperity, and saying, "I 
shall die in my nest." 

I point you, my brethren, in this light, to the 
meaning of your providential history. I beg you 
to consider God's discipline towards you, and its 
high intent. The picture in the text portrays to 
us the unremitting care and assiduity of God in 
prosecution of one great end — to make you get 
out from your indolence and immaturity and rise 
and fly in all the ways of an elevated Christian 
living. 

There is a higher style of Christian living, just 
as different from the lower Christian life as the 
manhood is from infancy, as the soaring eagle is 
from the unfledged bird in the nest. The Scrip- 
ture, indeed, sometimes speaks of such an ad- 
vanced piety as requiring, in some cases, a re- 
converting power for a new turning to God. I do 
not say a second regeneration. This is just as im- 
possible as was the case proposed by Nicodemus — 
a second natural birth. There is no falling from 
grace where there is no grace to fall from, and 



THE eagle's nest. 313 

what grace begins it will complete. The new- 
born soul has the divine life; it may be sickly, 
faint, dwarfish, feeble, childish, so as to adhere to 
the diet and action of the child, and seem to get 
no manliness or maturity. This is what we speak 
of. And in the case of Peter, Christ forewarned 
him of his weakness that would issue in a fall, and 
then assured him that though he should come to 
be disgraced before his brethren, and should weep 
bitter tears of shame and sorrow, yet by his divine 
intercession, his faith should not utterly fail. And 
when this crisis is past, he says, "When thou art 
converted, strengthen thy brethren." 

Would you know what this reconversion is? 
Look at the case of Peter. No more following 
afar off, no more childish fear, no childish boast- 
ing ; but a heart full of love, that would bear the 
threefold questioning of the Master at the Sea of 
Galilee, or plunge into the sea to embrace him; 
would defend his cause at Pentecost — before the 
scoffing Jews and scorning Sanhedrim, and did 
go to prison and to death for his sake; whereas 
before, he had only made the loud profession and 
shrank away when the trial came. 

Let us look a moment at the assiduity and vari- 
ety and persistency of God's dealings with us in 
this direction. Job, out of the midst of his severe 
discipline, his poverty — children and health gone 
- — caught a view of the dignity of such divine 
dealing, and cried out — "What is man that thou 
shouldest magnify him and shouldest set thine 
heart upon him, and that thou shouldest visit him 



31 J: THE EAGLE'S NEST. 

every morning, and try him every moment?" And 
the Psalmist, in the same spirit, wonders when 
he looks out from the glorious marshalling of the 
stars and says — "What is man that thou art mind- 
ful of him, or the Son of Man that thou visitest 
him?" 

Look, then, upon your changes, and see that 
they are only the hand of God in your affairs, only 
the evidence of his interest in you, only the posi- 
tive proof that he cares too much for you to let 
you alone. Were it any advantage of a school 
that you should get no lessons, or that the lessons 
should never be hard or long, or that when the 
lesson is poorly learned it should never be given 
you over again, even with a rebuke, to call atten- 
tion to it and set you about an earnest study of it, 
and impress it on your memory? Look back a 
little and see if there be not here an interpreta- 
tion of your allotments that vou should all along 
have regarded well and understood. Ask if this 
understanding of it would not have often altered 
the whole aspect of life to you — lighted up many 
of its dark places and made the whole course of it 
seem sacred, and even its suffering sweet? I think 
we all understand this, in this day of trouble, un- 
der this dispensation of calamity and death. 

First, there is the stirring up of your nest. It 
is hard to be disturbed so — to have the slumbers 
broken and the quiet of the dear household in- 
vaded by disaster, disease and distress — hard to 
be dislodged by the hand of violence and have 
the sweet resting-place utterly torn in pieces and 



THE eagle's nest. 315 

you and yours emptied out upon the world. But 
this is only God's fidelity. Every such occasion is 
only a golden occasion for you to put forth some 
heaven-born energy, to cultivate some cultured 
grace, to put you in motion, so as to try your 
wing and learn its use and practice the divine art 
of soaring towards God. Therefore he disturbs 
your house or dislodges you from your comfort- 
able nest. The culture of humility or charity or 
patience or faith — this is what is aimed at. He 
knows what a desolate hearth-stone is, and there- 
fore he has adopted this device for your highest 
interest. Just as if a father should find his son 
sleeping out at night in the barn, among the cat- 
tle, and he should tear his pillow of straw from 
under him, only to bring him in to his better 
couch and covering. That stirring up of your 
nest, God has done. If he had not done it, he 
would have been caring less for you. That sharp 
bereavement, that came like a thunderbolt upon 
the head of your house and struck down the part- 
ner of your bosom, or the idol and ideal of your 
family, was only in the line of his gracious deal- 
ing. Just as surely as you are his child, we know 
what is his intent in the affliction. 

You can not fully appreciate the picture before 
us, unless you consider that it is not only the nest 
of her young, but her own nest, that the eagle 
stirs up. It is so with the Covenant Angel. God's 
interest in his children, even in the weakest of 
them, is amazing. This is his household and his 
family that he deals with. Their enemies are his 



316 THE eagle's nest. 

enemies, and his glory and joy is in getting them 
up to himself. 

How he bore with the blindness and hardness 
and backwardness of the twelve, the denials of 
Peter and the doubts of Thomas, and even, up to 
his dying moment, saw from the cross of his agony 
how they shrank ignobly away, down-hearted, fear- 
ful and ready to give up all for lost. And how he 
spent those forty days seeking after them, and 
appearing to them all the way from his home in 
glory, just to clear away their doubts and remove 
their prejudices. And now, when he stirs up your 
nest, he feels the pang, for it is his own darling 
interest that clusters there. Think not it is the 
hand of a rude invader, who would wilfully break 
up your peace; think not that God sends these 
afflictions as purely judicial, with no pang of sym- 
pathy in your sorrow. He has tried to show us 
— "What is the riches of the glory of his inher- 
itance in the saints." And here in the preceding 
context, as if to prepare us to appreciate the pic- 
ture, he has said — "The Lord's portion is his peo- 
ple. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." 

But this is not all. There is an infinite variety 
in the treatment. Just as that noblest parent bird 
flutters over her young in utmost anxiety, hover- 
ing over them, to arrest their attention; so, if you 
would listen, you could hear the Covenant Angel, 
by the very rustling of his wings, in your affairs, 
constantly challenging your notice, winning you 
to consider him as your Saviour and to commit 
your ways to his care; bidding you look upward 



THE eagle's nest. 317 

from all that- is grovelling and selfish and slug- 
gish, and to see and recognize with gratitude how 
busily and anxiously he watches over you for your 
highest good. Can you not read this teaching in 
your history? — u In all their affliction he was af- 
flicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. 
In his love and in his pity he redeemed them and 
he bare them, and carried them all the days of old." 
This is life's great secret. And if you know what 
it is to pity your suffering children, that is the 
picture, if you please: "Like as a father pitieth 
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 
him." He never stirs up your nest, but he stirs 
his own soul to the depths. 

And then another device for the same object 
is represented by the eagle spreading abroad her 
icings in the view of her young. It is another 
feature in the inspired illustration, another variety 
in the loving discipline of God. We know what 
this is — that when at some moment the attention 
has been arrested by some dealing, like this flut- 
tering over you of the Covenant Angel, God shows 
you, by his own pattern in the flesh, what it is to 
soar; what he would have you do and how you 
should do it, ever spreading abroad his own wings;, 
in the way of tempting you to the upward flight. 

When he gives us to see how beautiful is that 
exalted piety which shone in the man Christ Jesus 
— is there no incitement in it to seek a similar 
style of living ? He became very man to live for 
us as Avell as to die for us. All that life of his, 
from the cradle to the grave, was given as a pat- 



318 THE eagle's nest. 

tern, no less than a propitiation — pattern prayers, 
pattern labors, pattern graces, pattern life, pattern 
death — always soaring himself, so as to teach us to 
soar. 

And can you not read this also, in his parental 
discipline? Have you not sometimes been driven 
away from all earthly trusts, from every human 
helper, to Christ Jesus alone, as the only alto- 
gether lovely being in the universe? Have you 
not been pressed to the simple study of his char- 
acter and life, as having in it an attraction and a 
perfection nowhere else to be found ? And when 
sickened of the imperfect earthly examples, you 
have sought a true and perfect pattern of living, 
have you not been led directly to behold the Man 
— the Pattern Man ? And then, in every circle of 
life, among enemies or friends, in the temple or 
the garden, in the home of Martha or the house 
of Simon, on Tabor or Olivet, you have seen him 
spreading his wings teaching and tempting us to 
soar. 

And then, as a crowning feature of the illustra- 
tion, there is that other variety in the treatment 
of the Covenant Angel, where he takes us and 
bears us on his wings. When all other dealing- 
has seemed unavailing, and you would neither be 
worried nor wooed to an elevated Christian life — 
when he has stirred up the nest and torn it from 
under you, and you have just clung to the near- 
est bough; when he has fluttered over you and 
spread his own wings to your view, all to teach 
and tempt you heavenward — then, beyond all this, 



THE eagle's nest. 319 

he has even come by the sweet compulsions of his 
grace and lifted you up upon his own wings and 
borne you heavenward. You have seen that noth- 
ing has sufficed but his own almighty power bear- 
ing you on the bosom of love. 

If you have ever been lifted up from your grov- 
elling, it has been by the thought of what an in- 
finite stoop he made, to get you on his wing. He 
must needs get beneath you in order to bear you 
up. Angels came thronging out from the sky and 
hovering over the earth in wonder to see whither 
he had come, and they could not refrain their an- 
them, but even among the clouds of this rebel 
world, they sang, " Glory to God in the highest 
and on earth peace." 

And now you behold him taking you, laying 
hold upon you to save you, bearing your sins upon 
his soul, bearing you on the bosom of his divine 
intercession, and carrying you along with him on 
the wing of his own victorious ascension; rising 
from the dead and ascending from earth for you, 
and bearing your names on his sacerdotal breast- 
plate in heaven — the pledges for you till you come. 
This has made you soar — only this discovery of his 
standing for you, dying in your stead, vanquish- 
ing death and hell for you, and rising to glory as 
the Captain of your salvation, only this, at last, 
has ever tempted you from your nest. And when 
you have felt these sweet constraints of his love — 
his own soft hand laid gently on you, to give you 
the benefit of his triumphant power and grace; 
when you have felt that you could fly only as his 



320 THE eagle's nest. 

wings bear you aloft; then yon have felt the in- 
citements to a heavenly living, and then, if ever, 
you have risen to the elevated Christian life. 

And now, look back a moment at the variety of 
the divine treatment in your case. See how it has 
all borne steadily to this end; see how in it all 
there has been the appliance of every tender de- 
vice which infinite love could suggest. 

And this is the key to the multiplied and diverse 
dealings: first, the discipline has been calculated 
to induce a higher style of prayerfulness. You 
have surely seen this. Your losses, sicknesses, 
bereavements, disappointments, estrangements, all 
have seemed pointing you with steady finger to 
the mercy-seat. When you were perhaps flagging 
in prayer, God has given you something to pray 
for; and if, under the rod, you have gone to pray 
merely for present relief, so that all the motive to 
prayer would be gone with the occasion, Christ 
has opened to you there, amidst your tears, his 
own heart of love, and shown you the upper side 
of the matter. And you have come to prayer in 
the higher department of its exercise; you have 
studied and practised it in the higher branches — 
as a holy communion with God, a happy soaring 
heavenward, a friendly fellowship with the Father 
and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And it has come 
to be the very breath of your being, and you have 
put away your old worn-out prayers for new ones ; 
you have learned something of the power of prayer 
in the amicable wrestling with the Angel of the 
Covenant, until the breaking of the day. 



THE eagle's nest. 321 

But it was not until your boasted human strength 
had been crippled, and you were sent halting to 
the mercy-seat. Then you have begun to think 
of prayer not merely as a form, not merely as a 
duty, but as the highest privilege of the creature 
and the loftiest freedom of a son. Ah! it was 
therefore, that every grief dealt out to you seemed 
a new grief — the loss of a child so different from 
that of a parent, the loss of a wife so different 
from that of a child, the loss of property so differ- 
ent again from either; the treachery of friends, 
the ingratitude of children — each the hardest to 
bear, just because your faithful Father would, in 
each affliction, try a new device and give you a 
new lesson — utter a new call to himself and ply 
you with some new parental discipline to this end. 
And if you have learned the lesson well, you have 
found yourself now praying on a new principle, 
in a new language and temper of prayer, as differ- 
ent from the former as that of the publican from 
the Pharisee. And you have found the meaning 
of the promise — "That they that wait upon the 
Lord shall renew their strength, shall mount up 
on wings as eagles." 

And so, secondly, this series of divine dealings 
has tended to induce a higher style of Christian 
reliance— faith we call it, that seems with some a 
mere intellectual exercise with scarce an emotion. 
You may have found it so in its lower depart- 
ments. But then, perhaps, God has beaten you 
about from the nest to the bough, and from tree 
to tree, until you have been driven to soar up- 
21 



322 THE eagle's nest. 

wards and to seek your very home in the skies 
and in his bosom. Now it is not merely belief, 
it is filial confidence — implicit, childlike reliance. 
It is trust; it is the higher style of faith, that is 
deeply emotional, deeply personal, that works by 
love, takes hold of the inmost, utmost heart, and 
binds it to the kindred heart of this Kinsman Ke- 
deemer in the bonds of a fervent affection. 

Then, when you have come to find Christ walk- 
ing among your daily affairs as truly as he walks 
among the golden candlesticks — the Alpha and 
Omega in all providence, and you have seen 
enough of his dealings, to know that you must 
not repine at what seems grievous till you see the 
issue of it, nor call any thing adversity till it has 
worked out its results; when you have heard him 
say — "I am the ending as well as the beginning 
of all providence, the last letter of the alphabet in 
these lessons, as well as the first," and you have 
learned to look for a bright noon, out of a cloudy 
morning — then you have come to walk more by 
faith, and faith has worked more by love, and you 
have just thrown yourself into the arms of his 
faithful and eternal covenant. 

And so, also, this discipline has taught you the 
lesson of Christian activity in its higher stages. 
You have seen this to be the aim of his daily and 
various dealing — to shake you from your nest by 
some means or other, so as to put you on the wing. 
Therefore, you have found all other sources and 
streams of happiness dried up, saving only the 
happiness that springs from Christian duty. Even 



THE eagle's nest. 323 

beyond the happiness of receiving, which the world 
counts its chiefest pleasure, has been the luxury 
and blessedness of giving. And when you have 
come to this, then, indeed, there was the highest 
evidence of your getting the upper track, dwelling 
in the higher atmosphere. You have seen Christ 
showing to you the crown of righteousness, ex- 
hibiting the thrones and dominions to be pos- 
sessed by the saints in glory. And you have 
heard him say — "He that is faithful in that which 
is least, is faithful also in much; have thou au- 
thority over ten cities." And his own dying love, 
showing the scars on his forehead and in his very 
heart, has been a powerful constraint with you, 
till even his suffering has made all suffering in 
his service sweet. 

This exalted Christian life is no fiction, my breth- 
ren, nor yet will it do to hold, that he who can not 
lay his hand upon his heart and say he has fully 
attained to this, is no Christian. No! alas! This 
is theory, but practically the test is extravagant- 
Men do not longer come into this world in full- 
grown manhood, like Adam. There must be in- 
fancy before maturity, there must be much tend- 
ing and nursing and growing, much creeping and 
staggering often, many sore bruises and much of 
life's daily discipline, before we reach this full 
manhood of Christian life. But a Christian, like a 
bird, is made to soar, and therefore he is dealt with 
by his faithful Father to drive him to the wing. 

And, blessed be God ! there is this elevated style 
of piety. The firefly lightens only as it flies ; birds 



324 THE eagle's nest. 

of gay wing show their plumage, only as they 
soar ; and none of us can get to heaven except by 
working up thither, climbing up by the steps of 
the ladder, where tribulation works patience, and 
patience works experience, and experience works 
hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the 
love of God — what God's love is to men in Jesus 
Christ — is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy 
Ghost given to us. 

And now look back upon the discipline of your 
life past ! All along you were too prone to look at 
second causes, and to overlook God's hand. Even 
at the grave of some brother Lazarus, you heard 
the voice of God speaking from the clouds and you 
referred it to natural phenomena and you said 
"It thundered," when it was the tender voice of 
the Covenant Angel, speaking to your soul. Look 
at your history in this light! Interpret it all on 
the Christian principle. See if you can not un- 
lock all its mysteries with this one key. Was not 
the chastisement paternal? Can you not read this 
tender, yearning love of God in all the severest 
dealings, emptying you from vessel to vessel, like 
the Avine, that you may be refined? Can you not 
see the Covenant Angel, every way busied to draw 
or drive you heavenward? Look at your prosper- 
ous days as wooing you to God, and your adverse 
days as worrying you to seek refuge and fellowship 
with God. See how this same good hand has been 
in all your affairs for this same good end, and how 
sicknesses and bereavements, birthdays and burial 
days, meetings and partings, good news and bad 



THE eagle's nest. 325 

news, new friendships and ruptured ones, gains 
and losses, all were but the new lessons given in 
this great study of a habitual communion with 
God. And then crowning all those week-day mer- 
cies and miseries, by which you were disciplined, 
there came the sweet Sabbaths and the holy sacra- 
ments, as reviews of the lessons. 

And now, after all, how much have you really 
and inwardly and practically learned? How much 
higher do you rise to-day in your devotions than 
you did on the first Sabbath of your new birth ? 
Does not the Angel of the Covenant yet stir up 
your nest, flutter over you and spread his wings 
abroad, take you and bear you on his wings? 
And after all this, are you able to lay your hand 
upon your heart and say — " Lord, thou knowest 
ail things, thou knowest that I love thee?" "For 
to me to live is Christ" — Christ for the rule of 
living, Christ for the motive of living, Christ for 
the ideal of living, Christ for the source and spring 
of living, Christ for the very definition of living ! 
Then, indeed, you may afford to be in a happy 
balance between two worlds — to have Christ with 
you on earth, or to be with Christ in heaven. 
Walking with God like Enoch, it could not be 
but that you shall go up to God, virtually with- 
out death — without its sting and curse and bit- 
terness ! And when, some day, men will inquire 
why your place is vacant in the business circle, 
in the household, and in the church, it will be 
said — " He walked with God, and he was not, for 
God took him." He went up, not in any chariot 



326 THE eagle's nest. 

of fire, but on the soft wing of the Covenant An- 
gel. From where he daily climbed to the topmost 
round of Jacob's ladder, he stepped directly into 
heaven; from where he trod on the high-road of 
Christian living, far up towards the celestial city, 
he found the door wide open into the golden streets 
of the New Jerusalem. 



XIX. 

OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I 
would have told you." — John xiv. 2. 

It is the blessed presumption of our Christianity 
that there is a heaven for the people of God. If it 
had not been expressly revealed it could have been 
plainly inferred from the whole Christian system ; 
not that the eye hath seen it, though it hath seen 
Sinai on fire and Jesus transfigured in his robes of 
light; not that the ear hath heard it, though it 
hath heard the anthem of angels at Bethlehem. 
But God hath revealed it unto us, not only in the 
written word, but in the Christian heart also, by 
the Spirit. All the assaults of Satan, all the efforts 
of skepticism, all the powers of the vain world, all 
the plague of the depraved nature can only ob- 
scure the prospect or stagger somewhat the hope. 
But the voice of Jesus is heard amidst all the con- 
fusion saying, in the whole tenor of his teaching, 
— "Be not afraid:" — "It is so:" — and "if it were 
not so, I would have told you; because I would 
not have allowed you to entertain so natural an. 
expectation only to be disappointed." Fears come 



328 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

rushing upon the soul, like the swelling billows of 
the ocean just where they foam in the breakers 
and lash against the shore. But amidst the deep- 
est darkness the signal lights are seen hting out 
from the very skies. And these are responded to 
by the testimonies within, as well as by the voices 
from the garden and the cross, that the whole 
Christian system requires such a consummation. 

AVhat a sport of human hopes would be made by 
a Gospel that says nothing of heaven, by a salva- 
tion that stops at the grave, by a Saviour who does 
not bring life and immortality to light. They, 
therefore, who receive Christ at all do understand 
that it is for a deliverance which looks beyond the 
grave; that it is for an inheritance which would 
be despoiled of its excellence and beauty if it did 
not lie far beyond the reach of this present evil 
world. 

And so Jesus, with inimitable tenderness, comes 
forward to the distressed disciples and administers 
this magic consolation. The great cure for heart- 
trouble, he says, is to believe in him, and then he 
announces this ultimate fact of a home in heaven 
for God's people. Look beyond, he says. Fear 
not. All that you expect and more will be yours 
in glory — " If it were not so, I would have told 
you." 

We propose to consider wherein it is the presump- 
tion of our Christianity that there is a heaven for 
the people of God. 

First: A heaven is to be presumed by the char- 
acter and the life of Jesus on earth. 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 329 

Look upon him as you will, I challenge the 
blackest infidelity to say that he belongs to this 
earthly sphere. You would know that his Father's 
house was not even on some most favored island of 
our globe, nor in some royal domain such as mon- 
archs have fitted up for themselves. His works, 
his tastes, his longings, his affinities, were every 
hour proving him to be the tenant of some bright- 
er realm. And his miraculous life, and his mira- 
culous resurrection and ascension, all discovered to 
men that a better world than ours must claim him, 
and that somewhere in God's great universe there 
must be a land of purity and blessedness and peace 
and glory such as would be congenial to him. 

He came down amongst these human circles and 
traversed our sinful sphere, a living exception to 
the race, a personal contradiction to the great uni- 
versal law of depravity. 

So he announced himself as the Way to some 
other region, and the Truth in open refutation of 
the world's errors, and the Life in the highest sense, 
and beyond all this dying life of ours. And wher- 
ever he went it was as if odors from the Isles of 
the Blest were emptied upon the air — the sick 
revived, the dying were healed, the dead were 
raised, and all pointed to a superior department 
of being. It was as if the whole host of angels 
had been sent down to open to view that other 
circle of society and that upper world of light. 
No wonder that his disciples, catching gleams of 
his glory, asked him, " Whither goest thou?" And 
no wonder that his reply to their question was, 



330 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

"Whither I go ye know and the way ye know," 
but ye can not follow me now. No wonder that 
beholders inquired whence he came. 

And therefore it is, that however our Christian 
faith may be puzzled to fix the locality of heaven 
— in what fair planet or star of God's universe — 
Jesus is the blest object whose home, we know, is 
heaven. And we are content to rest on this assur- 
ance, that where he is, there we shall be also. Not 
in a mere spirit-world, for there is his glorified 
body! His life, it was, no less than his doctrine* 
which brought life and immortality to light. And 
therefore it is that, following in his footsteps, we 
know we can trace the shining road to where he 
enters in and is at home in the Father's house. 

And so also, secondly: All the relations which Iv 3 
instituted here icith sinners proved that his object was 
to make us felloiv-residents ivith him in heaven. 

He showed us, that surely as there is such a 
world of blessedness, so surely he came to take 
us up thither. If he is the Living Head and we 
are the members, how can these parts of the one 
body be forever separated, or where shall the liv- 
ing members be, but with the Living Head? This 
was the whole drift of his teachings, and the whole 
tendency of his system. So that if you should 
strike out from our Christianity the heritage beyond, 
to which it invites us, it would be only a system 
of severest disappointment, and most self-contra- 
dictory in all its terms. " If in this life only we 
have hope in Christ, we are of all men most 
miserable. " 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 331 

But consider, if he is Shepherd of the sheep, 
where, or when, is the shepherd office to be exer- 
cised so delicately and tenderly and surely and 
effectively, as when we come to the dark valley 
and deep shadow of death — with a view to our 
passing triumphantly through all the darkness and 
danger to the other side ? And so, if he is the 
Life of men, as the living vine to the branches, is 
it not in reference to the life eternal, which is only 
at best initiated here below, of which this is but 
the infancy? 

The religion of Christ has for its foundation-doc- 
trine the truth of the resurrection, as instanced in 
the triumphant resurrection of Jesus, and as to be 
gloriously illustrated and fulfilled in that of his re- 
deemed people. And he is not only the Resurrec- 
tion, but he is also the Life Eternal which makes 
the resurrection precious. And so, if this religion 
be not our strength in a dying hour, and our com- 
fort over the open grave, it fails just where we 
need it most, and where it promises us the strong- 
est consolation. But here it does not fail. Here 
it blazes forth in its utmost effulgence at the dark- 
est point. 

So also, thirdly, God has allowed us glimpses of 
that heavenly world, from tohere the gates have stood 
ajar for a moment, and the inner glory has been 
revealed. 

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, entered in there 
without the formality of death ; and his body was 
changed, as the bodies of those believers shall be 
changed who are found on earth when Christ shall 



332 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

appear at the consummation. How that primitive 
saint went up we know not. It seemed to have 
been by some vanishing, as of one that is caught 
up in a cloud, or a whirlwind of glory; or as of 
some star that merges into day — "as sets the 
morning star, that goes not down behind the dark- 
ened west." And so that heavenly state was re- 
vealed to the antediluvian world. 

And then, again, under the law — Elijah, the 
prophet of Israel, was caught up with all the dis- 
play of a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and a 
whirlwind. 

And then, still further, and nearer to us, that 
same Elijah was seen again — returned to earth 
along with Moses, who died on Mount Nebo; and 
there they stood together, in their robes of light, 
on that golden summit of the transfiguration. 

And still again, and still nearer, Jesus himself 
was caught up from Olivet in a cloud of glory and 
parted from the sight of men. 

These mountain summits of the earth have thus 
seemed to touch the skies; and gleams of "the 
Delectable Mountains" have gilded these very hill- 
tops where we travel in darkness, looking out for 
the eternal day. And so, whenever a fellow-Chris- 
tian has passed in there from our own circles, we 
have seen something of the celestial effulgence 
beaming through where he entered. 

And fourthly : This Christian system throughout 
implies such an estate beyond, as it is a system of 
longing and praying and icaiting and progressing 
till ice arrive where Jesus is. The heart, therefore 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 333 

that has not been touched with any yearning for 
such a blest abode, has not begun to conceive what 
the Christian system is, as a system of aspiration 
and elevation and salvation by Jesus Christ, and 
of glorification with him forever. 

But every believer has had his faith rise to some 
height of heavenly contemplation, has had it, more 
or less, take in that other and celestial sphere, 
and, with the help of Scripture, he has pictured 
to himself its glories, and has, perhaps, imagined 
himself seated down in its eternal mansions. Just 
as when the traveller has climbed the highest 
summit to get a view of the Alpine snow-peaks, 
and he has found the mists gathered round the 
glorious crests, and he has sat down in weariness 
and disappointment. But presently the mist-clouds 
have parted and, one by one, the snow-peaks stood 
forth to view, and then all of them together, 
wreathed round with the gossamer, and standing 
forth in every various phase of majesty and beauty, 
and then at sunset the golden glory, resting on 
the summits, have made them to seem like the 
gate-way of heaven — all the more luminous and 
glorious for the circling veils w r hich at first had 
obscured them. 

" And what if earth 
Be but the shadow of heaven and things therein 
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought ?" 

These heavens and this earth are types of a new 
heaven and a new earth which shall be. 



334 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

"Many a joyful sight is given, 

Many a lovely vision here: 
Hill and vale and starry even, 

Friendship's smile — affection's tear — 
These are shadows, sent in love, 
Of realities above." 

And now Jesus speaks to warrant all that the 
most lively conception has ever painted — to legiti- 
mate it all as none too glowing, none too bright, 
none too assured; that the reality is rather infi- 
nitely transcending all that we ever conceived. 
He describes it, rather, by what it is not, than by 
what it is. No night there; no sorrow, nor sigh- 
ing, nor tears, nor any more pain. He says that 
this Christian faith of ours, that goes out and fixes 
upon such a blessed world, shall in nowise be dis- 
appointed; that all that we have inferred from his 
teachings and from our longings about that estate, 
shall be more than realized in the fruition. And 
that "if it were not so" — that there is a Father's 
house for us as well as for him — he would not 
have allowed us to remain a moment under the 
misconception, but he would have told us not to 
expect it. 

First, then, the heavenly world is fairly to be 
presumed — considered as the Fathers house of 
Jesus. 

We come in our feeble faith, like those early dis- 
ciples, beholding this Lamb of God, wondering and 
asking of him — " Where dwellest thou?" And he 
replies to us — "Come and see!" He has excited 
our desire to dwell where he dwells; his home we 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 335 

would have to be our home. All his human inter- 
course has awakened this sympathy and affinity. 
And shall it be disappointed? We hear him all 
along his path crying, "Follow me: I will show 
you the way: I will clear it of obstacles. Come 
on." We inquire, therefore, to what realm he be- 
longs. And it is to this very point that he here 
speaks, and enlightens us about the extensive ar- 
rangements there in his Paternal abode. 

He means, clearly, that there can be no such 
restrictions and limitations there, as belong to these 
earthly habitations — that in his Father's house there 
is room for all the children, no less than for him- 
self. Did he not say to Mary, "I ascend unto my 
Father and your Father, and unto my God and 
your God?" And is not his Sonship the very basis 
of our sonship ? Do we not become sons just be- 
cause he is the eternal " well-beloved Son," "the 
first-born among many brethren," who has the 
birthright place and privilege? And "he is not 
ashamed to call us brethren," just because "he 
hath prepared for us a city." And if this be so, 
his Fathers house is our Father's house, and what 
he means here is that the grand Paternal homestead 
has many mansions. 

The first idea in this phrase is the manifold 
accommodations. 

There is such amplitude, such variety. This 
could also be fairly presumed. Not all alike for 
all the children, for the very reason that they are 
not all alike in respect to training and culture and 
development. As the life yonder is to be presumed 



336 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

from the life here, so that life must be supposed to 
be the continuation of this, according to the laws 
of mental and moral being. 

Some may reach that heavenly land the merest 
babes in Christ, and some all dwarfed compara- 
tively — no high expansion of their powers in abun- 
dant works of faith and love — no full unfolding of 
the soul to the measure of the stature of the fulness 
of Christ. And though there shall be no imperfec- 
tion which could imply defect or infer the presence 
of sin, yet all perfection is not the same. There is 
a perfect child, and yet that is not a perfect man, 
nor that a perfect giant, nor that a perfect artist, 
nor a perfect warrior. According to the pathway 
of each, must be the landing; according to the 
race must be the chaplet; and according to the 
victory must be the crown. Even among angels 
there are cherubim and seraphim — angels whose 
specialty is knowledge, and angels whose specialty 
is love. So there are archangels, and among these 
there are thrones and dominions and principalities 
and powers. There is room there for the babes in 
Christ. There must therefore be an infinite vari- 
ety, according to an infinite aptitude. All shall 
not live in the same house, but each under the 
same spanning firmament of love, and as under 
the same grand roof of the Father's house of 
Jesus. 

The next idea of the phrase is, that these mani- 
fold accommodations are dwelling-places — abodes, as 
the term is — not temporary, like these tents which 
are so easily blown down by the gale, or swept 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 337 

away with the flood, but places for an abiding 
residence. 

This also could be fairly presumed. If we are 
pilgrims, as we are, we are journeying to a bet- 
ter father-land. If we are disturbed in these 
poor houses of clay that are crushed before the 
moth, it is that we may enter the more permanent 
habitation. 

This Christian hope, that, with such steady fin- 
ger points us forward and upward, points to this, 
if to any thing — an enduring home. That which 
this shifting scene makes us long for — to get to 
some quiet retreat that shall be "incorruptible, 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away " ; that which 
is the high ideal of the soul is precisely what is 
variously painted to our vision, and delineated 
in the text. All variety there to suit the case of 
every redeemed and pure spirit; and all perma- 
nency to leave no fear of change, nor any pang at 
the prospect of departure. 

And then, that this abiding residence shall be 
home — cheery and blessed; the fondest resting- 
place of the soul, the dear centre of its joys and 
the sphere of its endearments. More welcome 
than home could ever be to any poor traveller 
who comes in, after the dusty and famishing and 
sleepless travel to the happy homestead on earth; 
more hearty and happy greetings of the great glo- 
rified family, through all the membership. All that 
was lacking to make home the perfect fruition of 
every bliss, and that to all eternity, shall be there 
enjoyed. Absence from the body becomes bliss, 
22 



338 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

because it is to be u at home with the Lord," as 
the term is. 

All analogy warrants this conclusion. The bird 
upon whose back God has fashioned the wings, 
finds the broad sky made for it to fly in ; and the 
fish whose fins are fitted for the watery element 
finds the seas and rivers for its appropriate life; 
and shall the soul that is winged and plumed for 
glory, find no sky in which to soar ? 

And so, in truth, it is, as to all the Scriptural 
types or images of our home in heaven; they are 
the fullest response to our felt necessity. There- 
fore this is the nature of the presumption. There 
shall be the utter absence of all evil, and the full- 
est presence and experience of all good. What- 
ever we sigh for here in vain, whatever we could 
possibly enjoy there, whatever could enter into the 
cup of delight for a ransomed creature, must needs 
be comprised in that one magic word, heaven! And 
hence whatever sorrow or sighing or pain there is 
here, must give place to the rich and overwhelm- 
ing enjoyment. "In thy presence is fulness of joy" 
— such as fills the vessel to the utmost, and makes 
it brim over with the fulness. 

Consider then, further, the general idea involved 
in the item of a mansion is, that it shall be our pos- 
session of a dwelling — not rented, but owned. 

We are always aiming here to possess somewhat 
that we can call ours, especially an abode which 
we call a home. We are often fretting for more 
than we have or can have. This aim, that in 
some worldly minds rises to the pitch of an ava- 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 339 

ricious grasping, adding house to house, and field 
to field, and leading to the enlargement of barns 
and storehouses, as the depositories of their goods, 
is, in the limited sense, natural. And, in so far as 
it is a legitimate aim, the presumption is, that 
heaven shall be the sphere for its highest grati- 
fication. 

So the Scripture, alluding to this principle, delin- 
eates that happy estate as an inheritance. It is an 
inheritance, as a patrimony, coming to us through 
our sonship. "If children, then heirs!" If chil- 
dren of God., then heirs of God; and if children of 
the same Father as Jesus himself, then joint heirs 
with Jesus. Sharers with him in the heritage — so 
that whatever belongs to him becomes ours to en- 
joy as partners of his heritage, members of the 
body of which he is the Head. 

Then it is a possession of holiness. 

This is an inward treasure. This, therefore, is 
an article of wealth not reckoned by the banker, 
nor quoted in the market nor valued by the world. 
And yet it is just the richest of all treasures, be- 
cause it is an estate of the soul ; real estate in the 
highest sense, as distinct from mere chattel and 
movable estate, and inalienable. And just because 
all peace and rest and true felicity must have their 
seat in the inward condition — just as the glory of 
this Gospel is to open a fountain within the soul, 
as a well of water, springing up to everlasting life, 
so we accept this as the highest boon — the posses- 
sion of an undefiled nature, 'personal estate as being 
always available. 



340 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

This internal grace makes the inheritance unde- 
filed, as no power in the universe could make it 
to us, without this. To bear the very likeness of 
Jesus — not in any mere superficial impression, 
such as a stamp upon the wax could give, not in 
the mere physique, resembling the man Christ Je- 
sus, but in an inward and spiritual transformation, 
to have the elements of the divine life in the soul, 
so as to be living on the same great principles as 
God lives — ah! this is it — with divine tastes and 
heavenly affinities, aims and joys. This is the 
chief possession. 

And just because it so belongs to the very text- 
ure of the soul itself, it can never be alienated in 
the least. This, therefore, must be the nature of 
the heavenly mansion. As it implies rest, and 
home, and these can not exist in their highest 
sense without holiness of nature, so we find that 
it is no palatial residence even of most enduring 
fabric, for even the solid granite would crumble in 
the heat or be demolished in some convulsion of 
matter. The home and the rest and the inherit- 
ance that is incorruptible and undefiled must be 
the soul's possession of an inward holiness, which 
is shared with Jesus Christ — the divine nature of 
which we become partakers through him. It is 
therefore notified to us that it is a home in the 
Father's house, a home for us as children of the 
Father, and as bearing his image and likeness 
within for all eternity; and so heaven must be, 
according to the whole presumption of the case, 
the possession of whatever would enhance at all 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 341 

the enjoyment of the blessed. This idea is also 
involved in the many and various mansions, to 
suit the particular case of each — of Abraham, of 
Isaac, of Jacob, and of you and me. 

So it is spoken of, again, as a kingdom, mean- 
ing evidently that just as one's home is his king- 
dom, in so far as it is a home to him, so there the 
redeemed saint shall have fullest range and sway 
amidst all the wealth of delights, privileged to en- 
ter upon the occupancy of whatever realm or sphere 
of pleasure belongs to the kingdom of Jesus, wear- 
ing the crown of that kingdom, though he were 
a beggar here on earth; proprietor, now, by vir- 
tue of his heavenly heritage, of such a domain as 
no mortal ever conceived, with royal titles upon 
his breast, royal diadem upon his brow, all such 
as Jesus himself wears, and all possessed by virtue 
of oneness with him. 

Now, if you stagger at the thought of such glory 
for a child of the dust, consider what is the pre- 
sumption of the whole Christian system. It is free 
grace to sinners. It is nothing for any being of 
our race except in Jesus. But it is every thing in 
Jesus, offered to the vilest of mankind. If he is 
the Head, and we are the members of one and the 
same body, then in this complex person all the ful- 
ness above must be enjoyed. Then take the sur- 
vey. Ask what inheritance is his, and call it yours 
also, if you stand in Christ. Is it that a redeemed 
sinner is to be placed on a footing with righteous 
Abel, or with Abraham the friend of God, or with 
John who leaned on the bosom of Jesus, or with 



342 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

Mary his mother, or Mary who anointed his feet 
for his burial, or with Gabriel? No! but with 
Jesus himself. 

But, further, there is the possession of knoideclge 
which must be presumed as belonging to heaven. 

This idea is involved in the text. For it is the 
joyous certainty and realization that is here prom- 
ised beyond all doubt. For knowledge is the aim 
of our higher nature, which must surely be grati- 
fied there. 

Ye doubting Christians, who wonder what is be- 
yond, in the great future, I tell you now, he says, 
as you shall soon rapturously know it for your- 
selves, if you are children. And "if it were not 
so I would have told you." The tree of knowledge 
in the midst of the old paradise must surely reap- 
pear in the new paradise, along with the tree of 
life. And this fruit shall no more be interdicted. 
Then it shall be notified, "Of the tree of knowl- 
edge of good and evil, thou may est eat." It never 
was the nature of the fruit, but only the nature of 
finite man, that made that original restriction in 
Eden. 

We are left to inference here, as to what range 
of knowledge, what researches into God's works, 
what traversing of the material and moral uni- 
verse, what high calculations in the profoundest 
science and philosophy shall be allowed us. No 
tougue can tell. But we conclude that such inves- 
tigations as the mind is fitted for, and such as 
have only been distantly approached here, will 
fill the utmost capacity there and forever. With 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 343 

powers of mind immensely enlarged, and faculties 
exquisitely refined and glorified, the boundless field 
will open to the enraptured view. So that there 
never will come a period, all down those intermi- 
nable ages, when knowledge will cease to flow in 
upon the delighted intellect, or when any barrier 
will be set up to the range of the mind in all the 
fields of exploration. God, creation, history, prov- 
idence, Scripture, redemption, retribution — such 
themes, such volumes, spread out for all eternity ! 
How Jesus will communicate of this boundless 
knowledge. Already he says, " I have called you 
friends, for all things that I have heard of my 
Father I have made known unto you." And we 
shall enter into the knowledge of Jesus as he is, 
in all his offices, in his personal offices for us, the 
full knowledge of redeeming love in all its annals, 
where it passeth knowledge here. 

And further still, there is included all the appro- 
priate occupation for all eternity. 

It is to be presumed from the whole Christian 
system, that all fitting employment is reserved for 
us in heaven. And this idea is also involved in 
the text. For home has never its charm from a 
mere lazy indolence, where time hangs heavy; and 
jeternity would be insufferable. The home occu- 
pations sweeten the delights of home, give relish 
to the daily meal, create ever-increasing bonds of 
sympathy in the household, and give play to all 
the finest feelings of our nature. What is home 
if there be no objects of fond endearment to en- 
gage the thought and occupy the attention and 



344 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

affection, and give zest to the daily occupation ? 
And so, heaven is spoken of as a sanctuary into 
which the Great High-priest has entered, and we 
enter with him as "priests unto God and the Fa- 
ther." It is a round of priestly services, chiefly 
the offering of the sacrifice of praise. 

Yet who shall say that the celestial tenantry are 
debarred from doing good to others in their sub- 
lime spheres ? Not indeed, as charity can here be 
done, among the needy brethren, but as angels 
minister now to us, so may we not minister to 
other orders of being, or even to angels, to return 
somewhat of their manifold and blessed service, 
reciting to them at least the story of our personal 
salvation? And in the glorified body, those spir- 
itual frames in which we shall be clothed shall 
have their highest employment — works worthy of 
the house "not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." 

And, finally, as further belonging to the idea of 
the text, and as the necessary charm of the many 
mansions, is the glorious personal and social reunion, 
which must be enjoyed there — the mutual grat illa- 
tion, each in the other rejoicing, all rejoicing in 
Jesus, and Jesus rejoicing in all. 

Already as one enters before us we seem to over- 
hear the happy greetings of the great family with- 
in, and to catch glimpses of the glory through the 
open door-way. What do we long for in heaven 
next to seeing Jesus, so much as Ave long for a rec- 
ognition of Christian friends gone before? There 
is a chord in every heart which is touched and 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 345 

thrilled by this expectation. It is not explicitly- 
revealed, just in so many words, but it is most pos- 
itively implied and presumed. The royal mourner, 
the sweet Psalmist of Israel, as he wept over a 
departed child expressed a balmy thought for be- 
reaved parents, who have laid their treasures early 
in the tomb, when he said, u He shall not come to 
me, but I shall go to him. 1 ' 

What is home without such a recognition of the 
members in the happy circle? Could it be that 
God has fitted up the Father s house for the chil- 
dren, with all its boundless hospitalities, and yet 
they who have gone up thither from the same 
earthly household shall not know each other there? 
The joy you daily take in greeting your relatives 
and friends — nay, even the pure pleasure you feel 
in collecting their photographs within a clasped 
volume of your own, turning over the leaves of 
such a magic mirror, where you gather them at 
will in a sweet circle around you — all this is only 
the natural inward yearning which is to be so per- 
fectly gratified there. No matter how refined and 
exquisitely attenuated shall be that spiritual body 
it shall be a body nevertheless; all the more deli- 
cate and fairy-like as it shall put off this grossness 
of the common flesh. And when even the image 
which the light of day imprints upon the snow- 
white paper smiles upon you, and seems to speak, 
though it be only a thing of the sunlight, could it 
be that the spiritual body should have no features, 
or that those features which that soul has seemed 
to make should not be for the delighted eye of 



346 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

companion and bosom friend? And should we be 
allowed to go through the streets of that New 
Jerusalem inquiring in vain for those whom our 
soul loveth, and whom we expected to meet again, 
and to greet again, in the eternal reunion there ? 
So Jesus comforted the weeping sisters when he 
said, "Your brother shall rise again;" and he com- 
forted the sorrowing Mary at his sepulchre by the 
joyous words, "I ascend unto my Father, and your 
Father." Oh! how could heaven be heaven indeed, 
if such a yearning of our hearts were denied us, 
and if we could never recognize again the pure 
and lovely and good who shone here in the image 
of Jesus, and were folded together with us, in the 
same Shepherd's arms? 

Yes, and more than this. Why should we not 
recognize all the great and good of whom we have 
ever read or heard — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
and Paul, and John, and the Marys, and the mar- 
tyrs, and the reformers, and all the great benefac- 
tors of our race ? Why not ? Shall not heaven be 
made most pleasant to us by our being introduced 
to them, one by one, among the glorified throng, 
and learning the story of salvation from the tongue 
of each ? And then if Jesus was a friend on earth, 
"the chiefest among ten thousand," it must be sur- 
passing joy to recognize his features, and to see 
the halo of glory that sits upon his thorn-crowned 
forehead, and to behold the scars of his crucifixion 
beaming in his hands and feet and side. At the 
resurrection, they who have loved him and longed 
for his abode shall be clothed in a body like his 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 347 

own. " He will change our vile body that it may- 
be fashioned like unto his glorious body." "And 
as we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenfy." We 
shall know each other there, even as we are known 
here. And so they know us now. They look out 
of the window upon our path, as we are led by the 
good Shepherd, and so they await our return, as 
they see us nearing our heavenly home. 

"Jerusalem the Golden; 

There all our birds that flew, — 
Our flowers but half-unfolden, 

Our pearls that turned to dew, — 
And all the glad life-music 

Now heard no longer here, 
Shall come again to greet us, 

As we are drawing near." 

My brethren, if heaven is our proper home — if 
there our hearts and treasures are — then death 
ought to be welcome. Nay, then we may bear 
poverty, losses, crosses, all ills of life, and rejoice 
in the glorious prospect. Nay, we could even say, 
like a devout Christian on his death-bed, "I am 
homesick." 

But is this your real affinity? Would you find 
heaven to be your home, even if God should open 
wide its gates to you? Would you find there your 
home circle, your fond endearments, your favor- 
ite occupations, your most cherished friendships? 
And would your freed spirit sit down there as in 
your Father s house, and among your brethren of 
the same happy family ? Or would your heaven 



348 OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

be in the festive circle of worldliness? Would it 
be, then, that all the glories of that blessed realm 
should afford you no pleasure, just because of your 
earthy and depraved tastes and desires — -just be- 
cause of an unrenovated nature ? Would you your- 
self probably feel there as one feels who is ushered 
into a festive company, where he is an utter stran- 
ger and is not recognized by the circle, just be- 
cause he has nothing in common with them ? 
Then it is not the fault of the place, nor of the 
proprietor. It is not God's fault, nor any fault of 
heaven. But it is the alienation of your own soul 
from all that is good and happy and blest in the 
presence of God and the Lamb. And God is just 
when he says to such — "Depart from me, I never 
knew you." 



XX. 

THE DOUBLE CALL. 

"And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that 
heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And who- 
soever will, let him take the water of life freely." — Rev. xxii. 17. 

This closing passage of Scripture is a splendid 
summing up of every thing that is inviting in the 
Gospel. 

When Christ had unfolded to the exiled apostle 
a symbolical sketch of human history in this Apoc- 
alypse, he closes with that which is the one grand 
end of all Scripture, a universal call and offer of 
reconciliation and eternal life. So, that it is, as 
if, on the back of the prophetic roll in which all 
human events are outlined, there is stamped for 
every beholder this Gospel message — Come. As if, 
in view of all the historic future, men's one great 
leading interest must always be, to come hither 
to Christ — no matter what events are happening, 
or may happen. As if all elements and agencies 
which enter into the working fabric of human af- 
fairs, could give only one and the same invitation 
— Come. And as though all providential agents, 
all angels, cherubim and seraphim, were taking 
up the call, and sounding out, over and over, in 



350 THE DOUBLE CALL. 

every form, with every variety of anthem and ap- 
peal, the message — Come! come! come! 

In the immediate context, the Lord Jesus has 
twice announced himself as speedily coming to the 
world for the scenes of the final consummation. 
He says, u Behold I come quickly ;" and then again, 
he repeats it, " Behold I come quickly and my re- 
ward is with me, to give to every man according 
as his work shall be." And now it would seem, 
that the former part of our text is a call to Christ to 
come to men, and the latter part, a summons to sin- 
oxers to come to Christ. As if after the prophetic 
unfoldings were all given, in vision here, it re- 
mained only to put forth in one glowing and glori- 
ous sentence, what may be regarded as a concen- 
tration of the whole Scripture, calling upon Christ 
to come to men, our world — and calling upon men, 
the world, to come to Christ, as is predicted and 
portrayed here. 

In the previous context, Jesus declares himself 
as the Alpha and the Omega of all history; and, 
accordingly, as being at once the Author and Fin- 
isher of this temporal estate. He repeatedly an- 
nounces himself as coming quickly. "Behold I 
come quickly, and my reward is with me." And 
here, immediately, and as a response to such an- 
nouncement, the Spirit is represented as calling out 
— "Come. 1 ' And the Church, the Bride of Christ, 
echoes the call to come. And then, every hearer of 
so glad a declaration and response is bidden to 
join the acclamation, and to bid Jesus come and 
welcome to this waiting earth. 



THE DOUBLE CALL. 351 

And then, as if this, his second advent, must be 
that which shall make it infinitely desirable and 
every way encouraging for sinners to come to 
Christ, that so his coining to judgment, and com- 
ing for the salvation of his people may be the 
present urgent motive with all men, the call goes 
out to the thirsty soul, whoever he be, to come, 
and whoever will, is entreated to take the water 
of life freely. 

And first, the Spirit in prophecy calls on Christ 
to come. 

As to the nature of this coming, we shall only 
say that it is in accordance with the whole spirit 
and scope of prophecy. It is that coming in 
power and great glory for which the Church looks 
to build up his kingdom in all the earth, and to es- 
tablish his millennial reign. It is that coming by 
his Spirit in mighty outpourings upon all flesh 
such as was only partially fulfilled at Pentecost. 

We need not here discuss the question of a per- 
sonal premillennial advent — whether we may look 
for Christ to appear visibly in person before the 
millennium, to achieve what the Church and the 
instituted means of grace can not do, to consume 
the wicked upon the earth by the literal breath of 
his mouth and destroy them by the brightness of 
his coming. All along the ages the prophetic an- 
nouncement was of the Comer. Always, it was in 
drapery suited to the time, that this glorious ad- 
vent was depicted. 

There were four great predictions of Christ in 
the patriarchal age — one for each of the four great 



352 THE DOUBLE CALL. 

epochs of the Church's history, before the settle- 
ment in Canaan. There was a prediction of Christ 
at the FaU, and another at the Flood, and another 
at the Covenant with Abraham, and another at the 
Exile from Egypt. And in each of these, the 
prophetic vision reaches beyond the first advent, 
and takes in also the second. 

When the serpent had just tempted the first 
pair, the Comer was announced as the Destroyer 
of the serpent. "And for this purpose, the Son 
of God was manifested, that he might destroy 
the works of the devil." But when he came and 
spoiled principalities and powers on the cross, the 
bruising of the serpent's head was not fully accom- 
plished so much as the bruising of the Saviour's 
heel. The Spirit therefore, in that first promise 
from the earth's earliest history, calls out to Jesus 
to come in his second, triumphal advent, to put 
all enemies under his feet. 

And even in the antediluvian times, Enoch who 
walked with God as a child walks hand-in-hand 
with the parent, overreached all human history, 
and announced the second advent of Jesus with- 
out even speaking of the first advent. u Behold 
the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints 
to execute judgment upon all." 

And so, at the era of the Flood, the Spirit cries 
out in the promise to Noah, and calls for that pre- 
dicted enlargement of Japhet, and for his dwelling 
in the tents of Shem. This can ensue only upon 
Christ's coming, in the ingathering of the world's 
dominant races to a pure Christianity. 



THE DOUBLE CALL. 353 

And so the Spirit cries out, in the covenant 
promise given to Abraham — calling on Jesus as 
the seed of blessing to come. 

More and more the prediction labors for accom- 
plishment. In this promised seed, all the families 
of the earth are now waiting to be blessed. The 
benighted and down-trodden, the infidel and idola- 
ter, the civilized and barbarous — are they not all 
in an attitude of longing expectancy, crying for 
deliverance, and there is no deliverer for them but 
Jesus; sighing for light, and he it is, who coming 
into the world, lighteth every man. And so, also, 
at the time of bondage in Egypt, the prediction 
had a voice which is still crying for accomplish- 
ment. For the Shiloh has come. But the gather- 
ing of the nations to him, in a hearty and univer- 
sal obedience, waits its glorious fulfilment. It is 
advancing. The march of the world's millions is 
plainly onward toward this goal of human blessing. 

But observe, in the second place, the Bride also, is 
here represented as joining in this call to Christ to 
come. This is the Church, the Spouse of Christ. 
Already in the midst of the ancient economy this 
is the very attitude in which the Church is de- 
picted, in that wonderful Song of Solomon. We 
hear her voice as that of a desolate, lone woman, 
searching about the city for her absent partner 
■ — inquiring of the watchman, in most touching 
strains, where he may be found. To her his ab- 
sence is represented under the images of scorching 
suns, freezing winter, pelting rain, pitchy night, 
dreary desert — and she can not sleep nor take any 



354 THE DOUBLE CALL. 

comfort till she find her beloved, till she hear his 
voice at the lattice, till his fingers drop myrrh on 
the handles of the lock. All language is exhausted 
to express that connubial love which makes her go 
about through the streets and lanes of the city, 
crying for his coming. Nay, through the fields, 
and over the mountains, she searches for him, 
and her cry is still the same earnest, impassioned, 
beseeching — come ! come ! " Come with me from 
Lebanon, my Spouse, with me from Lebanon. Look 
from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and 
Hermon; from the lions' dens, from the mountains 
of the leopards." This is the restless plaint of the 
true Church, in all ages, crying and entreating 
until the Bridegroom shall come. 

And the heart of genuine faith and hope and 
love has always found fitting expression in these 
matchless passages of that Song of Songs, which is 
Solomon's. It is an index of returning conscious- 
ness in the Church of our day, when she finds 
these stanzas of the Canticles such as suit her 
lively desire, when she goes through our cities, 
in the person of her members, crying aloud, and 
weeping for the coming of the Bridegroom. 

And the Church in all the world is earnestly, 
anxiously looking out for the Masters coming. 
She is so interpreting all his methods of provi- 
dence and all the stupendous steps in history, all 
the upturnings and overturnings among the na- 
tions; and nothing is of so great moment to this 
spouse of Christ, as that he may come in all these 
commotions, and that on this accursed earth, where 



THE DOUBLE CALL. 355 

he was derided and condemned and crucified by 
sinners, he may be exalted and enthroned in power 
and great glory, holding the kingdoms as all his 
own. 

And now, seeing that this is the outcry of the 
Spirit and the outcry of the Church, calling upon 
Christ to come, in keeping with this proclamation, 
what is needed is, that every one by whom the 
promise or the response is heard, shall take up the 
cry, and re-echo it all around. "Let him that hear- 
eth say, Come!" 

Every hearer of the Gospel should become a pro- 
claimer of it in his sphere, to his circle. It is in 
this way that the divine plan contemplates its uni- 
versal promulgation. If the iron is to attract, it 
must first be magnetized. God has pleased to 
make men ministers to their fellow -men. And 
there is no method so natural, nor is there any 
so efficient. 

It is not supposable that angelic ministries, 
though so much more exalted, would subserve so 
direct and valuable an object as man's own min- 
istries to his fellow-man. Hence the Godhead re- 
vealed itself in the God-man — not in the God-an- 
gel, nor God-seraph, but in the God-man. 

And he who is so blessed above others, as to be 
a hearer of this Gospel sound, is summoned to take 
it up and echo it. This is only what he would find 
it in his heart to do, if he heard some other glad 
tidings, in which all the multitudes are as deeply 
concerned as in self. This is only an instinct of 
our better nature — to tdl the good news which is 



356 THE DOUBLE CALL. 

so fitted to gladden other hearts, to give utmost 
currency to such a heavenly message, as will cheer 
the laborer at his work, and the prisoner in his 
dungeon, and bid the weeping and desolate chil- 
dren of want rejoice. 

And then, again, if this were done at this mo- 
ment, simply with the aim of each Christian man, 
bringing home the message to another so as each 
to duplicate himself in the kingdom of Christ, then 
how long, think you, would it take for the whole 
world to become converted ? If there were only 
half a million of true Christians in the world, and 
each should be the means of bringing one soul to 
Christ in a year, and these should go on, each du- 
plicating himself in this way, yearly, every soul 
on the globe would be converted within thirteen 
years. 

But instead of half a million of Christians on 
the earth, there are twenty-five to thirty times 
that number, who make a credible profession of 
Christianity. Alas! that such mighty forces should 
be so dormant. Oh ! when the leaking time shall 
come for the church, and this immense army shall 
be led forth in battle array by the Master, see how 
soon this globe of ours will be won for Christ ! 

It has been computed that if the work of the 
world's conversion should now begin for the first, 
in the ministry of a single man, and he should win 
one soul to Christ during the first year, and these 
two should do the like in the second year, each 
winning his man, so that four should be at the 
work the third year ; at this rate of reduplication, 



THE DOUBLE CALL. 357 

the whole world of one thousand millions would 
be won to Christ before the first laborer had come 
to his grave in the ordinary course of nature. In 
the United States if each Christian should bring in 
five more during the year, the whole population 
would be converted in a short twelve-month. 

And such a plan is precisely what we need this 
moment to have in operation — that each hearer of 
the Gospel become a petitioner for Christ's coming, 
and a laborer for it, sounding the invitation of the 
Spirit and the Bride to all within the reach of his 
voice. Then it would be as signal words of com- 
mand are passed along the ranks of an army — by 
each man repeating the order to those beyond; or, 
as a word of good cheer is passed around a social 
circle, like the arrival of a friend at the door ; or, 
as the news of peace, brought to the wharf of a 
city from a remote land, is echoed from mouth to 
mouth along the streets, till it reach the utmost 
border of the population. So it would be with this 
glad message of the Gospel. What the Church 
needs just now is individual effort — every one with- 
in her pale, every one within the sound of her 
message, becoming active in this glorious cause; 
every hearer becoming an evangelizer ; all her en- 
ergies thus brought out, all her agencies set at 
work, all her lively sympathies enlisted, as in any 
other grand scheme for impressing and influenc- 
ing men; mind operating upon mind, the voice 
of every hearer pleading with Christ to come, and 
pleading with his fellow-men to come to Christ : so 
that the individual effort will direct itself to indi- 



358 THE DOUBLE CALL. 

vidual conversion, each one laboring with some 
other to whom he recites the message, and plead- 
ing with him to be reconciled to God. 

And now, just because the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand, and just because Christ has announced 
himself as coming quickly, and just because the 
Spirit and the Bride, in response to this announce- 
ment, call on him most earnestly to come — there- 
fore, the words of invitation to men may be ad- 
dressed with more emphasis and urgency, to come 
to him who already has come to us as Kedeem- 
er, and is soon coming again as Conqueror and 
Judge. In what terms shall the closing invita- 
tion of the Gospel be couched? "Let him that 
is athirst, come ! " 

Tliirst — thirst — is the very expression of raging 
desire. It reaches to the soul's depths, and all 
agony of longing was expressed in this one bitter 
word, when Jesus on the cross said, "I thirst 11 It 
is only a hint on earth of what inexpressible de- 
sire rages in the bosom of a soul when it is lost, 
when it is in this flame of torment and has no 
drop of water to quench it. So Dives in hell said, 
"J thirst 11 It is because all men thirst with unsat- 
isfied cravings and need to find the fountain of life 
and blessedness, that this is the form here of the 
universal offer. As much as to say — every thirst- 
ing soul come hither — whatever your unappeased 
longings, whatever your feverish, burning appetite, 
whatever your unquenched desires — come hither ! 

Is this mistaken by some as a limitation of the 
Gospel call to such as can prove that they have 



THE DOUBLE CALL. 359 

the described thirst ? So it is that Satan and an 
evil conscience hasten to pervert the most genial, 
cordial words of Jesus; so as to rob the Gospel 
of all its grace and bar up the very open way 
to heaven. So many a weak and trembling con- 
science understands the Gospel call as limited to 
those who are weary and heavy laden, as the Scrip- 
ture describes; and at once they are laboring to 
find some evidence that they labor, to make proof 
of this quality in themselves as something meritori- 
ous. Or else they are counting themselves as ex- 
cluded, because they fall short of this description. 

Just as if any one should stand amidst a throng 
of famished paupers, and should say, "Let him 
that is hungry come to me for food." Would any 
oue think that he must first prove himself hungry, 
before he could be entitled to apply under the call? 
Or rather would it be understood by all that the 
mention of such a class was only to illustrate the 
grace, only to show that the provision was ample 
for all the need ; and that here the hungry could 
find food, the thirsty could find drink, the weary 
and heavy laden could find rest. The call is in 
terms of most unrestricted invitation — not limited 
by the kind of thirst, or the measure of thirst, or 
the character of the thirsting ones ; much less lim- 
ited by any secret decree of God, but " Ho every 
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ! " " Let 
him that is athirst, come I " For here the fountain 
is opened, here the well-springs gush up and brim 
over, and flow deep and full at your very feet. 

But I have known a difficulty to be raised by 



360 THE DOUBLE CALL. 

tender consciences about the matter of coming. 
" Oh," says one, "If I could only come in the 
sense of this call, or if I could come aright, or if 
I could know that I had really come at all to the 
right quarter." And so, some have debated and 
doubted about the coming, as if here was some 
mysterious difficulty, some secret impossible sense 
of the requirement upon which all the emphasis 
is placed; making the imitation a practical nul- 
lity, making this act of coming as much a legal 
service as the offering of rams and bullocks on 
the Jewish altar! It would seem as if to meet 
this very difficulty of some, that this last closing 
form of the Gospel invitation has in it not even 
such a word, about which there could possibly be 
any doubt, or which could occasion any delay. 

Let it be known, then, that it is nothing merito- 
rious in the manner of coming. No secret grace 
in the gait or attitude — whether it be running, 
walking, creeping — whether it be coming with 
many prayers and tears or with few. It is coming 
to Christ that is requisite. Not how you come, 
but to whom you come. This is the all in all. 

There have been all styles of coming. The 
young man who came running and kneeling, and 
made the best show of devotion, went away disap- 
pointed because he found nothing that he wanted. 
The blind beggar by the way-side, that only cried 
out from where he was, as the eager throng rushed 
by in the track of Jesus, he was blessed where he 
sat, and bidden to get up, and receive all bene- 
diction from Christ himself. So it is sometimes 



THE DOUBLE CALL. 361 

spoken of as looking, or seeking, or following, or 
trusting. 

Nay, my hearers, there is here nothing obscure, 
nothing mystical or perplexing, to any honest in- 
quirer. It is just the freest possible invitation — 
" Whosoever will, let him take the water of life, 
freely." Not, let him come and take, but let him 
take, where he is; as if the cup of life's waters 
were pressed to his very lips, and it is only to take 
it, if he ivill. 

There is nothing to stand between the willing 
and the receiving. It is just the single, only ques- 
tion, whether a man will have all the hopes of the 
Gospel, all the salvation of Jesus, all the heritage 
of the blessed, as an unmixed gratuity — whether 
he will take it as a gift. 

Let no perversions crowd in here. This is the 
last effort of the Holy Ghost, to clear the Gospel 
offer of all obscurity, to vindicate it from all objec- 
tion as inapplicable or inaccessible, to rescue it 
from all wicked perversion, as unsuited to any 
case, or as covering some undefined impossibil- 
ities, under the guise of a fair and free and full 
gratuity. Let it be known everywhere, that this 
last sublime utterance of the universal call and 
offer, is in that form which need not be misunder- 
stood, for language could not make it simpler, 
plainer, clearer; and there is no mystery, no per- 
plexity, about it. If you ivant it, take it Whoever 
will have it it is his. 



530 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
November, 1877. 



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Broken Mallet 1.25 

By her Sister : 

Golden Ladder Series. 6 vols.... 3.00 Dare to Do Right Series. 5 vols. 5.50 

Drayton Hall Series. 6 vols 4.50 Lilies and Thistledown 1.25 

Uncle Joe's Thanksgiving 1.25 Katy and Jim 1.25 

NELLIE'S SECRET. 

16mo 1.00 

HIS GRANDCHILD. 

A Tale. By the author of " Nellie's Secret." 16mo 1.00 

PINE N EEDLES. 

By the author of the "Wide, Wide World.' 12mo 1.50 

"We recommend this, Miss Warner's last work, very heartily. It is an excellent book. It 
can be read on the Lord's day, for it is concerning the Lord's people and His work. It is a 
book that will bear the severe test of being read aloud to the family circle. It is admirably 
adapted to such a use." — Christian Intelligencer. 

PEEP OF DAY LIBRARY. 

Containing "Peep of Day," "Sequel to Peep of Day," "Line upon Line," 
"Precept upon Precept," "Kings of Israel," "Kings of Judah," " Captivity of 
Judah," "Story of the Apostles." 8 vols. 18mo., in a box 4 50 

Or, separately : 

Peep of Day. 18mo 0.50 Captivity of Judah. 18mo 0.60 

Line upon Line. 18mo 0.50 Story of the Apostles. 18mo 0.60 

Precept upon Precept. 18mo 0.50 The Kings of Israel and Judah. 

Sequel to Peep of Day. 18mo... 0.60 In one vol. 16mo 1.25 

"Anything written by the author of 'Peep of Day' will find readers in Christian house- 
holds. Half a million copies of that charming book attest the author's remarkable success in 
writing for children." — Observer. 

A.n aggregate of 1,500,000 volumes of the different works by this author have been 

sold in England alone. 



4 Robert Carter & Brothers' New Boohs. 

ELLA'S HALF SOVEREIGN. 

l^mo 1.25 

CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN. 

18mo 0.50 

A capital judge of books says of " Christie's Old Organ :" " It is for its purpose the most 
admirable book I have ever met. It is perfect in its adaptation for the work of leading the 
lowly, the ignorant, the weak and depraved to Christ. Nowhere have I seen the story of the 
Cross so simply and yet impressively told." 

JACK O'LANTERN. 

A delightful book for little children. 8 illustrations. 16mo 1.25 

THE GIANT KILLER, AND SEQUEL, 

By A. L. 0. E. 16mo. Illustrated edition 1.25 

" A religious allegory. Faith is a Knight in panoply who goes out to contend with Giants 
such as Sloth, Selfishness, Untruth, Hate, and Pride. The book is a description of the battle 
that all must fight, and is deeply instructive and entertaining.*' — Advertiser* 

NEW BOOKS BY A. L. O. E. : 

Indian Stories. 18mo 0.75 

Victory Stories. 16mo. 1.25 

The A. L. 0. E. Library. 55 vols 40.00 

Heroes of Israel. 5 vols 5.00 

THE SEEP OF THE CHURCH. 

A Tale of the Days of Trajan. By H. M. Dickinson. 16mo 1.25 

LETTICE EDEN. 

By Emily Sarah Holt. 12mo 1.50 

LITTLE AND WISE. 

By the Rev. Wm. W. Newton. 16mo 1.25 

"A charming volume. . . . The stories and anecdotes, so plentifully given, really illus- 
trate the chapters in which they appear, without being mere gratuitous sugar-plums ; and the 
didactic element is very far removed from dryness. The child that does not enjoy the book is 
a fit subject for a physician's instant attendance, it is so healthy in tone and so agreeable in 
manner. Mr. Newton seems likely to inherit his father's mantle v.hen that most eminent of 
children's preachers shall have completed his work." — Independent. 

RAYS FROM THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

By Richard Newton, D.D. 16mo 1.25 

By the same author : 
The Jewel Case. 6 vols 7,50 The Wonder Case. 6 vols 7.50 



Robert Carter & Brothers' New Boohs. 



SERVANTS OF CHRIST. 

18mo 0.50 

m Just the book to put into the hands of young Christians."— Christian Intelligencer. 

A HERO IN THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

By the author of the " Memorials of Captain Vicars." 18mo 0.50 

ce No Christian can read this book without having higher conceptions of his duty to his 
\£X&"—Episcopal Register. 

BERNARDINO 0CHIN0 OF SIENA. 

By Karl Benrath. 8vo 2.50 

" The discovery of a great soul is greater than the discovery of a continent, and the perusal 
of the story of Ochino has been like the discovery of a new soul and a truly grand one to us. 
It presents a valuable and interesting picture of religious life in the Sixteenth Century."— 
Harper's Magazine. 

SCAMP AND I. 

12mo „ 1.25 

" It is touching in the extreme, and often literal to a degree which would do credit to the 
close observation of Dickens or Farjeon."— Christian Union. 

FIGHTING THE FOE . 

12mo 1.50 

" A capital book for children is f Fighting the Foe.' It contains twenty-five well-told stories, 
strung together by a simple chain. The stories such as ' Giant Gain and Dwarf Grudge,' might 
be well pondered by older people than those who usually attend our Sunday Schools."— Chris- 
tian Intelligencer. 

OLIVER OF THE MILL 

By the author of " Ministering Children." 12mo .. 1.50 

" Our young readers will follow with pleasure the growth of Oliver up to manhood and the 
manly, Christian development of his character, and we trust the many thousands to whom 
* Ministering Children/ and its « Sequel ' have been pleasant and useful, will find an equal sat- 
isfaction in the present work." — Northern Christian Advocate. 

D R. GUTHRIE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIR. 

New edition in one volume. 12mo • • 2.00 

(The fine edition in two vols, reduced to $3.00.) 

D R. GUTHRIE'S LIFE AND WORKS, 

11 vols., 12mo., uniform, in a box . 15.00 



6 Robert Carter & Brothers' New Boohs. 

FOURTH EDITION OP 

FORTY YEARS IN THE TURKISH EMPIRE. 

Or, Memoir of Dr. Goodell. By Dr. Prime. 12mo 2.5( 

FOURTH EDITION OF 

ALL ABOUT JESUS. 1 

By the Rev. Alex. Dickson. 12mo 2.0( 

NEW AND NEAT EDITION OF 

HUGH MILLER'S LIFE AND WORKS. 

12 vols. 12mo., uniform ..18.0( 

THE TRUE MAN. 

And other Practical Sermons. By Rev. Samuel S. Mitchell, D.D 1.5( 

GOLD THREAD AND WEE DAVIE. 

By Norman Macleod, D.D. New edition. 16mo 0.7* 

THE MARINER'S PROGRESS. 

By Duncan Macgregor. 16mo 1.21 

THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. 

IS IT SUFFICIENT ? By James McCosh, D.D., L.L.D. 12mo., limp... 0.5( 

THE JUDGMENT OF JERUSALEM. 

By William Patton, D.D. 12mo 1.2c 

MY OLD LETTERS. 

A Poem. By Horatius Bonar, D.D. 12mo 2.0( 

HOLIDAY HOUSE. 

By Catherine Sinclair. New edition, illustrated. 16mo 1.21 

PRAYING AND WORKING. 

By Stevenson. New edition. 16mo l.CK 

THE BLESSED HOPE ; 

Or, The Globious Coming ot thi Lord. By Willis Load, D.D 1.21 



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